


I Am Temptation, She Is Legend

by LucyCrewe11 (Raphaela_Crowley)



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Drama & Romance, F/M, No Incest, Teen Romance, They Were All Born In Narnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:47:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 136,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25497067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphaela_Crowley/pseuds/LucyCrewe11
Summary: After being sent away from Cair Paravel to boarding school in the Lantern Waste, Edmund discovers that his life and that of his best friend Lucy may in fact correspond with an ancient Narnian legend.
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie/Lucy Pevensie
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. The Count and the Princess

**Author's Note:**

> Written December 2010 through March 2011

It had been raining that morning (and extremely heavily, at that), but King Frank was pleased to see that the storm had let up at long last. He was tired of listening to the pattering drops hitting the top of the carriage as it rattled down the woodsy dirt roads; not, of course, that it mattered, seeing as he was almost home. Cair Paravel was nearly within sight if he cared to lean out of one of the windows and squint. He could even faintly pick up on the scent of the Eastern Sea not far off.

"How fares the little passenger, Sire?" asked his traveling companion, a friendly-eyed dwarf named Poggin.

King Frank sighed as he stared down at the shivering lump sprawled out uselessly under a large gray blanket in the cushioned seat directly across from him. He hated to wake him, but he felt as if he must now. Indeed, if it wasn't for the shivering, which was involuntary, he wouldn't have even known if the lad was still alive under there. He didn't like that. It was discomfiting to hear a child breathe so inaudibly, even in slumber. Why, his own little daughter-only the boy's junior by a year or two-back at the castle, likely eagerly awaiting his return, sounded like the wind in a ship's sail when sleep at its deepest over-took her!

"Shall I wake him, Your Majesty?"

"Thou should wake him, Poggin," the king consented.

Under the blanket, the boy was already awakening, only they didn't know it. He hadn't heard what the king had said to the dwarf, nor did he know that the dwarf was in the carriage at all before he felt a small hand touch his arm through the blanket.

Frightened, the boy squirmed sparingly and felt for something at his side.

Please still be there, he thought to himself, fighting the urge to breathe heavily (something he happened to be rather excellent at suppressing thanks to intense practice), please still be there.

The ice-blue sheath, roughly the same texture as a dragon's scale, was still hanging down from the thin, badly cracked leather belt round his middle, though apparently in a more lopsided manner than it had been previously. That didn't matter. Was the knife still there?

He felt for the hilt. Clear glass and hard metal brushed against his calloused fingertips; yes it was still there, same as before, not broken nor even battered. Would _She_ be angry that he'd stolen it? Probably. But _She_ was not his chief concern at the moment.

His worry was that the man in the carriage and the dwarf who's presence he was now highly aware of would hurt him. He was afraid; and that made him feel a bit ashamed as well. All the same, he couldn't help it; not when he couldn't make sense of anything that was happening.

Why would they take him? What did they think they were doing? Why hadn't they just left him? The thoughts swarmed round like frenzied bees in his head; their imaginary buzzing made it ache terribly.

He wanted to go home, only, he realized, he didn't seem to have one; he wasn't sure if he'd ever had one, come to think of it. Maybe when he was very, very small, but he couldn't remember anything about that. Yet he'd been trying to get home before he was taken, only something had happened, something bad, and the rest was all a blur.

Strangely enough, although the _She_ who would be angry that he'd stolen the magical knife was not what he was currently frightened of, he found himself wondering if she would come after him for it.

Had it been very stupid of him to take it?

Then it struck him: she wasn't going to be coming after him at all; she was dead.

Disbelief washed over him as the memory returned and reassured him of that fact, then came relief, followed by more confusion.

There was no time to ponder over this confusion, however, for he could feel the little hand sliding away from his arm and reaching for the blanket to pull it off of him.

He wrapped his fingers around the hilt of the knife and waited for the right moment.

"Ahem." Poggin coughed and, pulling back the blanket all the way, reached to turn the boy over so that he was facing him.

To Poggin's extreme surprise, the boy sprung up, standing as best he could in the moving carriage, holding a knife out in front of himself, the blade of which was made of stone, not steel or iron. His grip and the disturbingly fierce look in his dark-coloured, barely nine-year-old eyes, told Poggin that he knew how to manage a weapon.

"Stay away from me," said the boy slowly, holding the knife in a position even more threatening.

"Lad," said the king as meekly as if the stone blade had been something as common place as a big rock, "put thy weapon away. We will not hurt thee. We have rescued thee, we are friends to thee; we mean no harm."

He looked unsure. "Really?"

"Yes."

"Why are you helping me, then?" He squinted suspiciously at the king and the dwarf. "Who are you?"

"His Majesty is King Frank of Narnia," said Poggin, gulping at the stone knife that had not been returned to its place yet. "Do you know who you are, lad?"

The boy stopped and thought for a moment. He usually answered to 'Stupid' or 'Ingrate' or 'Fool' or "Hey You!", but he knew those were not proper names. He couldn't remember having a proper name. What he did remember was that he'd had a title once and was fond of it; it had been his one consolation, the sole reminder that he wasn't a nobody.

"I'm the Count of the Western March." He slowly began to lower the stone knife, for he was beginning to think he saw truth in the king's kind eyes.

"Does thou speak Archenland-English or Narnian as thy first tongue, Count?" the king asked. They'd been speaking in a northern dialect of the southern tongue of Archenland, but he, being a very perceptive sort of king, noticed the boy straining slightly to understand him.

"Lantern Waste French, actually. I was told that was my first, anyhow. But I'm more comfortable in old Narnian, since that's what I usually speak; the more modern terms…well, they're confusing."

"I see." King Frank nodded. Then, "Put thy knife away. Western March is Narnian soil; I knew of thou's identity before taking thee in the carriage. Thou art a high-born Noble of my country by birth, lad. Why should I harm thee?"

"I will put the knife away," the young count promised, "but only if you tell me why I'm here and where you're taking me."

"Fair enough." The king smiled warmly. "I am taking thee to the royal court of Cair Paravel."

"Why?"

The king's expression looked a little sad. "That is thy home now."

"I don't believe you," the boy muttered flatly.

"I could not leave thee to be murdered, lad. Thou does not remember?"

The boy closed his eyes tightly and tried to think as hard as he could. What _had_ happened before he'd been put in the carriage? He recalled stealing the stone knife, and that the old owner of it was dead and he wouldn't see _Her_ again. The rest he couldn't remember; except, maybe, just a glimmer. There'd been people who didn't like him, and one of them spat on him. Yes, he remembered being both angry and hurt over that, though he couldn't think why. Where were those people? _Who_ were they?

He shook his head. "I don't seem to remember very much right now. How long was I asleep?"

"Thou hast slept through the journey in full; nearly a fortnight."

"I can't live at court," said the count suddenly.

"And why not?" asked Poggin, a little offended. Having lived at the Narnian royal court nearly all his life, he didn't much like some cheeky young count who couldn't even remember his own name turning his proud little nose up at it.

The count shrugged. "What would I do there?"

"Thou would live as a prince for some years and then be sent away to be educated."

At that, the count frowned. "Educated? Where?"

"In a fine Narnian school, of course, fair lad." King Frank nearly laughed at his reply.

"Why are you doing all this for me?" The count was distrustful of such generosity; young though he was, he knew great acts of 'kindness' often came with terrible prices. In fact, the precious few times he could ever remember anyone being good to him in his life was when they wanted something from him, and it was never anything good either.

"Thou art a child, thou needst shelter and care, all the more thy family to teach right and wrong to thee," explained King Frank, reaching up to straighten the gold crown on his head as the carriage went over a sandy bump and knocked it to one side. "As thou has not these already, and I see not anyone else coming forward willing to take on such duties, it falls on me."

The count pressed his lips together and looked somber and very distrusting still.

"Thou will be content at court, Marsh Count," the king went on, pretending he didn't notice the boy's expression, hoping his words would eventually cause it to fade. "Oh, you will learn all manner of things. I can teach thee to ride a war horse or brandish a broadsword in ways thou probably could not imagine, much as thou seemst to know regarding fighting." He nodded at the knife which was at long last back in its sheath. "Thou art not very noble-looking now, but give it a month at court and see for thy self if thou art not better than the grandest of courtiers by then."

That sounded good, the count thought but wouldn't have admited. What was the point of wanting all that when, surely, they were lying or else meant to rip it away eventually when they tired of him? It was too good to be true, so it must not be true; that was only logic, really.

"You'll also have a playmate," Poggin told him.

The count scowled. Playmate, indeed! As if he were a pathetic, lonely infant and needed some royal brat to play with. He didn't think he'd fancy courtier children anyhow, nor did he think they, in turn, would care much for his sort of manners. He made up his mind right then and there to be nasty to any children he was forced into the company of straight out, just so everybody knew where they were at. He would not take unwanted company and he would not force others to endure his. Fair was fair.

"We've displeased thee?" King Frank raised an eyebrow.

"You'd best get used to the idea, young master," laughed Poggin in a tone of voice the count decided he hated. "I suppose you haven't any siblings or cousins to speak of, then? Judging by your dislike of childish companions."

The count didn't answer.

The carriage came to a stop and three footmen appeared seemingly out of nowhere and helped the king, the count, and the dwarf out.

The count couldn't help it, he stood with his mouth slightly agape upon catching his very first sight of Cair Paravel. He had never known it was that beautiful; white marble towers that almost seemed to glow in the pale evening light, flags the colour of a peacock's feathers flapping in the wind, the orange sunlight shimmering on the Eastern Sea. It struck him then that it was also his first time seeing the sea as well as the capitol of Narnia. So odd was it to think he could have broken free from the grips of the king and dwarf and thrown himself into that glittering water; part of him was longing to.

Then he saw Cair Paravel closer up, much as he dragged his feet it seemed he was fated to get there eventually, and he forgot all about that. He swallowed hard and fought the urge to pinch his arm to see if his eyes would shoot open and he would find himself lying stiffly, nearly frozen through and through, in the icy courtyard of a very different sort of castle.

Whenever the count had heard of Cair Paravel being by the sea, he'd always envisioned it either one of two ways.

The first was a little palace on the sand, so close to the water that when the sea was at high-tide the green, foamy waves lapped against the front flagstone steps. That had been a secret favorite daydream of his-a castle partly underwater-and when, sometime after he'd turned about seven years old, it had occurred to him that no king would have an important court set up that way, he couldn't help being a little heartbroken. Of course he would have never admited that; it would have embarrassed him terribly.

The second, his older self's vision, was of a manor carved into a cliff, perhaps a few sparse stain-glass windows scattered about to make it more grand than an ordinary cave. He supposed all the rooms would be quite dark and that there would be calls for candles at all hours of the day and night.

The real Cair Paravel was nothing like either of those ideals. There was a bit of a cliff, but it wasn't imposing, and the castle was _on_ it, not _in_ it. It expanded into tall towers like he'd seen from the first glance, but there were also domes and passageways as well.

If the castle he'd spent most of his life in had been this big, he thought, he would have been able to hide for months at a time, in endless corridors, without being found. Even from the outside he could see some of the enormous white marble columns Cair Paravel was lucky enough to possess.

The count couldn't help himself. He was captivated; he was entranced, he was helpless.

Nervous, he felt for the hilt of the stone knife again. They would probably try to take it away from him, because it was supposed to be something evil, and considering who he'd stolen it from, it probably _did_ have the capability to be under the right circumstances, he didn't doubt that, but it was all he had, the only item currently in his possession, and he would not let them take it; he would do anything else just to stay looking at this magnificent place, so unlike anywhere his eyes had ever beheld before, only not that.

Meanwhile, upstairs in an elegant bed-chamber with gold-and-orange silken curtains and an applewood four-poster bed with a matching wardrobe that had a carving of a large tree on the door, three chamber maids-two dryads and a curly haired lady faun-struggled to make their charge presentable.

It wasn't that the little princess of Narnia was troublesome or was really trying to give them a hard time, it was only that she was too excited to stand still.

"Your Highness, please stop sticking your head out of the window and put on your shoes." The lady faun sucked in her cheeks and tried-and mostly failed-to look stern. "Your mother the queen wants you in the throne room to greet your father; and if you think I'm letting you go barefoot, you've another think coming, Princess."

"I'm only trying to see Father's carriage." Princess Lucy of Narnia obediently pulled her head back into the room. "I think he's arrived."

"Well, you can't see him from that angle anyhow, as he's arriving on the other side of Cair, so it's no use trying."

Lucy sighed and reached for the shinny brown leather shoes. She had some trouble working the slim silver buckles.

The princess wasn't used to wearing those shoes, usually she wore soft sandals that she could scuff up climbing trees and playing in the water and exploring muddy riverbanks without getting too harsh a scolding, and when there was a grand occasion she had little white satin slippers decorated with tiny crystal-beads which she could just slip her feet in and out of with ease. But a few weeks ago she'd out-grown them by a hair of a inch and they began to pinch her feet too much to be of any further use; so someone, either a courtier or her mother Queen Helen (she wasn't sure which it was, really), had gotten her the new leather shoes with the silver buckles. They were pretty enough, she supposed, but too frustrating to be pleasurable; she would have gladly exchanged them for her sandals if it were allowed.

"Do you think Father is all right?" she asked in a small-sounding voice as one dryad picked up a hairbrush and the other began to help her with the buckles.

"His Majesty is fine far's I know," the faun told her, reaching down and shaking a small dust-clod out of the glossy, ebony coloured fur on her goat-legs. "Why?"

"He sent a letter that he left the northwest early," Lucy explained. "Mum said it was good news, and that he says he has a surprise for me, but the last time he left the north early and I was glad, it turned out he was badly hurt." A wicked northern giant had wounded the king in an unusually brutal raid.

"Worry not, little one," said the faun, "that was two years ago. And besides, wounded men rarely bring good surprises back."

"I guess they couldn't," Lucy agreed, furrowing her young brow in deep thought. "Unless he planned it before hand and didn't want to disappoint me."

"Now, then!" The dryad at her feet gave her nearest lower leg a light smack in reprimand. "You shouldn't think that everything in this world is done so as not to disappoint _you_."

Lucy's eyes widened; the gentle smack hadn't hurt in the least, but the words stung slightly. "I don't."

And, truly, she didn't. She wasn't a vain creature, too free spirited and fast on her feet to spend much time minding a mirror, and she was a very ordinary sort of child in appearance anyhow; short reddish-brown hair, a round face with a turned up nose that was sometimes freckled in the summer, and blue eyes. King Frank did spoil her terribly, as she was his only daughter, but, quite frankly, no matter how much he let her have her own way, no matter what extravagant gifts he presented the curious child, she simply would not be spoilt. Lucy was always willing to share with others, children and talking animals alike, friendly to no end. And while she could get cross when told she couldn't do something she wanted to do, just like any other child might, she was generally obedient, albeit momentarily sulky.

The dryad smiled to show her charge that she wasn't serious.

"What do you think the surprise is?" Lucy wondered aloud.

"I certainly hope it isn't another pony," murmured the faun to herself under her breath. "The princess spends too much time tearing up her dresses on horseback as it is."

"Do you think it might be a dagger?" the princess said pensively, remembering that she'd asked him for one to wear hanging from her favorite belt (she liked it because it was big enough to tuck up the folds of her longer dresses in, making it easier to run and play) not very long ago.

"By the Lion's mane, I hope not," said the dryad with the hairbrush, shuddering. She loved the king and queen's daughter dearly, but she wasn't sure she trusted any child that young with sharp, dangerous objects.

There was a knock at the chamber doors. "Is she ready to greet her father?"

"It's the queen," whispered the faun to the dryad who had just finished with Lucy's shoe buckles. (She would have been done much sooner if the child hadn't squirmed so!)

"She's ready, Your Majesty," they told Queen Helen as she entered the room and smiled at Lucy.

"Thou art just a mite taller each time I behold thee," sighed the queen, kissing her daughter on the forehead. "Come, I'm curious about thy father's surprise, too. He has told me naught. And I am sure it wasn't a planned present for thee, else I should have been informed and bound to secrecy."

It seemed to Lucy for ever before she and her mother had made it to the throne room. Every time she had to stop and show good manners by bobbing a return curtsey to this or that passing courtier acknowledging her, she thought she would burst with unfulfilled anticipation. Her excitement was not only for the mysterious surprise, but also for King Frank himself; she had missed her father every day he was gone.

Finally, though, she stood in the throne room, and saw Poggin enter, knowing the king would follow.

The second Lucy saw King Frank, she ran at him and threw her arms around his middle. "I've missed you so much!"

"I've missed thee, too, daughter." He kissed her cheek and embraced her again.

Pulling away, she looked excitedly over her shoulder at Queen Helen, surprised to see an expression of deep confusion etched upon her mother's face.

The queen's eyes were wide with shock and concern; Lucy's own followed them until they stopped at a dark-haired boy only a little older than herself standing a few feet behind her father.

The boy had a nice face, though decidedly not a very nice expression to match it, and he looked at Lucy half with indifference and half with forced respect since she was the king's daughter.

Lucy noticed he had sad eyes that didn't match his frowning brow and scowling mouth, and thought she would like to cheer him up.

"Lucy," said King Frank, gesturing over at the boy, "come and greet thy new brother."

Curious, Lucy trotted over to him. "Hallo there."

Queen Helen pulled her husband aside while the children got acquainted. "What hast thou been thinking?"

Under his breath King Frank explained that the boy was actually the count of the Western Marsh and how he had rescued him.

"Still, Thou hadn't any true right to bring him here, whilst knowing nothing about him or his disposition." Helen shook her head, tiredly.

"Would thee have had me leave a child to die? To be unjustly murdered by those who ought to have loved him?"

"Can the boy be trusted?"

Frank sighed heavily and stroked his wife's chin with the back of his fingers. "Alas, I twas certain that thee liked children."

Helen sensed he was trying to manipulate her and was displeased. She was not against the poor child, but she was wary, and thought her husband ought to be as well.

"Children that be in good order." The queen motioned with her chin over to the ruffled-looking count. "Children with names."

King Frank shrugged his broad shoulders and smoothed out a thick wrinkle in the cape he was wearing over his traveling tunic. "Edmund."

Now the strange boy had a name, at least.

Helen shook her head again and looked over at the two children; Lucy was trying to welcome the count of the Western Marsh by giving him a hug, and he making faces and shoving her arms away.

"Frank…" Queen Helen looked him directly in the eyes and folded her arms across her chest. "Thou art certain of this?"

"T'will take some time." King Frank patted his wife's arm.

For a week or more the count of the Western Marsh (now christened Edmund) avoided the Narnian princess like the plague, finding that his prior theory about hiding in Cair Paravel was, to some extent, quite correct. Lucy, however, was quite persistent in trying to make friends and managed to find him more often than he liked.

She tried very hard to be kind to him, even once attempting to give him her favorite stuffed animal (a depiction of a small dog with curly fur) on a day when she found him on the east ballroom balcony looking out at sea, his thoughts far away.

When he heard her coming, he wiped at his eyes, but not quickly enough for her not to notice the tears that had been in them only moments before.

At any rate, he rejected the dog and she, feeling rather at a loss, turned to leave him, only to find he had grabbed onto her wrist.

"You can sit with me if you want," said Edmund, biting his lower lip in-between words. "I don't feel like hiding today."

She held his hand and rested her small head on his shoulder. "It's all right to cry here, you know," Lucy told him gently. "I do, sometimes. Once, I cried for a whole half hour after I hurt myself falling down the grand staircase."

"I wasn't crying," he insisted flatly, his voice cracking.

A few minutes later, Lucy was holding him while his whole body shook with endless sobs. He was ashamed of himself, weeping like that, yet he couldn't help it. For once in his life, he thought maybe he would like to have a friend.

That moment of crying and holding broke the hardness of introduction between the two castle children; and some days afterward, when King Frank and Queen Helen opened the door to one of the many study-chambers in Cair Paravel, they found Edmund and Lucy sitting at a desk, a book open in front of them.

It was one of Lucy's favorites, a great big copper-bound tome entitled, _Myths and Legends of the Golden Age_.

Edmund couldn't understand the words, as they were written in Ettinsmoor-Latin, which Lucy could read but he didn't know, but he liked the numerous colourful pictures well enough and let her tell him all about them.

"That's the High King Peter," she would say when he pointed to a picture of a young fair-headed man in a velvet tunic. "He was said to be the greatest king Narnia ever had. They say Aslan, the great Lion, used to visit him often and that they used to talk for hours walking along the shore by the Eastern Sea."

"Did you ever see the Lion?" he asked.

"Yes," she told him. "I've even met him twice."

"I don't know Aslan." Edmund's eyes became downcast.

"That's all right," Lucy said kindly, touching his arm. "He knows you."

"Does thee see?" King Frank whispered to his wife, grinning. "Look, thick as thieves already! And he has gotten her speaking in both old Narnian and Lantern Waste French in less than a fortnight. None of the tutors could get her to learn that tongue."

"He's not a bad child, husband, but I am in fear of the strange knife he wears on his belts morning till evening. Tis an emblem of evil, thou ought to have made him leave it behind, not letting such horrors enter the court."

"Let him keep it for the time being," said the king wisely, understanding Edmund's inability to part with it. "Evil is only as evil does. And he does no evil to thy daughter."

"If ever a lad loved his companion," Helen had to admit, glancing at the children as they giggled at something funny in the book, "he does love her."


	2. Much Ado About Packing and Appearances

Lucy blinked, feeling puzzled, and draped the long train of the shimmering bluish-silver gown over one arm so that she could walk down the corridor without tripping. She could see her breath on the air as she pushed open the door to the throne room; it shouldn't have been that cold, the servants always kept the fires burning at Cair Paravel during autumn and winter. Something wasn't right.

Entering the throne room, she found that it was full of people-Narnian subjects and courtiers-all waiting…For her? That didn't seem right. What in Aslan's name would they want to see her for? Where were her parents? They were the king and queen of Narnia; surely this audience was meant for them.

There was something off about the throne room itself, too; it didn't appear as it normally did, the two great thrones were completely different in style from the ones her parents used more or less on a daily basis and a certain barred window that was rumoured not to have been unlatched for the better half of a century at least was wide open. The long silken tapestries, depicting grizzled dwarfs with silver-thread beards blacksmithing and willowy dryads standing beside their trees, were older fashioned than Queen Helen's usual decorating taste called for, looking to the Narnian princess's trained eye like something straight out of a picture in a storybook.

Looking down at the fabric draped over her arm, it occurred to Lucy that the gown she was wearing was as old fashioned as the tapestries; very like a royal garment from Narnia's golden age. She didn't own any article of clothing like that, and she didn't remember putting it on, either, come to think of it.

The sun came in from the window and Lucy thought she heard mermaids singing. She stepped up onto the grand dais, hoping to address the Narnians on whatever the matter was, but no sooner had she climbed up there, shivering, than she lost hold of her train, stumbled, and fell all the way back down.

She would have hit the floor, only something had caught her. Her eyes were shut all of a sudden, so she opened them to see what was holding her up. It was a familiar-faced young man with dark hair.

"Edmund?" she murmured, recognizing the person with his arms around her torso helping her up onto her feet.

Taking in her surroundings, she found she wasn't in the throne room anymore; she was in her bed chamber, having evidently fallen asleep at the window-seat again. There was a large knitted blanket wrapped haphazardly around her arm, trailing onto the floor like the train of the golden-age gown had been mere moments ago.

"You all right, Lu? You were tossing and turning a lot, and you nearly fell off the window-seat and onto the floor."

"I'm fine," Lucy said, a bit shakily.

The realization that she had been dreaming washed over her and she quickly began feeling much better. Nothing was amiss in her chamber and the fire crackling merrily in the grate was delightfully warm. Her cold sweat dappled hands felt a little chilled (they had been pressed up against the cold glass of the window itself as she slept), but they were thawing quickly enough.

"You're sure?" Edmund double-checked.

She nodded and managed a smile. "Yes, of course."

He let go of her waist. "Well, so long as you're awake, Mum wants you to finish helping your chambermaids pack."

It had been seven years since Edmund had first been brought into Cair Paravel as a malnourished, distrustful, sullen, frightened child. He had changed a great deal since then, largely as King Frank himself predicted from the start.

Good meals had strengthened the young count and he'd grown both taller and stronger, his muscles hardening from riding horses, swimming in the Eastern Sea, racing Lucy all over the courtyard and indoor corridors, hunting in the nearest woodlands, and learning swordsmanship. He liked the fencing and swimming best out of all of his physical lessons; he beat courtiers more than twice his age at broadsword fighting, and he could swim further out and for longer periods of time in the sea than anyone else Lucy had ever met.

His intelligence had grown as much as his body. Edmund didn't usually buck at having to sit down and learn dates and battles and geography and analyze famous literature, provided that Lucy had to endure it with him, and he actually took to such things with surprising cleverness. He proved talented at arithmetic, too. So much so that the centaur in charge of Cair Paravel's royal treasury secretly went to him for help whenever he was stuck on a problem. Sometimes he was certain he got the right answer but would check with Edmund anyway-just in case-only to find he'd been wrong and that the count had gotten the sum correctly right away.

Queen Helen was impressed in spite of herself and had to admit, all worries put aside, the count was both wise and just. She found herself warming to him slowly, eventually being as much a mother to him as she was to Lucy. After about three years, Edmund even began to address her as such.

King Frank had been willing to be a father to him right off the bat, giving him jolly nearly anything he wanted, but although Edmund was reasonably appreciative for the king's efforts, he wasn't as trustful of him. He couldn't understand why someone would immediately do all that for a child who wasn't even theirs; Helen's initial struggle through coldness and forced kindness to genuine love was somewhat easier for him to relate to in a parental figure. That was why, even when he began to love Frank as a father, he never could love him _quite_ as much as he did Helen.

And his affections for both of them paled in comparison to what he felt for Lucy.

It frightened him sometimes, how much he loved his constant playmate. He hid it very well, and no one (not even Lucy herself) was aware of just how deep his emotions for her ran; but he knew every minute of every day, because, for him, they were always there, like a dull ache in his ribs or a faint bruise on his heart. Secretly, his greatest fear was that Frank would eventually marry her off and she'd leave Cair Paravel for ever and never again think of the count she had befriended as a little girl, remembering him only as one recalls a favorite plaything from early childhood; with mildly tender thoughts, perhaps, but only in passing and without real worth.

Whenever the potential loneliness consumed him, Edmund reminded himself that, even if his horrid fears came to life, such a tragedy wouldn't be likely to happen for a long, long time. After all, King Frank and Queen Helen were more focused on educating her than on finding her a marriage mate at the moment; they were sending her away to school, and Edmund was to be sent as well, just as King Frank had promised in that carriage ride seven years prior.

Edmund had all that time with Lucy to look forward to, so he wouldn't think about the dark demons in his mind that made him feel sorry for himself; he'd keep them at bay and refuse to acknowledge them, same as he did the few flickering memories from before he lived at Cair Paravel that came back to haunt him.

Same as the count, the princess had grown a lot in the last seven years. Her short reddish-brown hair had become long and wavy, and she'd grown into her face so that, round as it still was, it no longer looked childish or doll-like. Her eyes were a slightly darker blue in young adulthood than they'd been when she had first met Edmund, but the expression-the curiosity, laughter, and overt kindness with occasional flickers of intense determination-in them was as unchanged and as reliable as the waves that lapped against the cliff Cair Paravel was built upon.

Lucy's talents were not in swimming or swordplay like Edmund's; she wasn't natural with a blade, although she could handle one under the correct circumstances and was slowly-sometimes almost painfully so-improving; and for most of her childhood she 'couldn't swim for nuts' as she herself bluntly admited once after being questioned about the matter. Only recently, with a great deal of effort and practice (and help from Edmund) had she finally learned to keep her head even in extremely deep water. She good at archery, one of the few things Edmund didn't seem to have much of a knack for. She excelled in most of her studies (especially history and ancient literature), save for geography, which she often got muddled.

"I don't see why we have to go away to school," sighed Lucy, unwrapping the blanket from her around her arm. "I don't want to. I want to stay here at Cair. Anything we can learn there, I'm sure we could learn ten times as fast here at home."

Edmund, of course, didn't want really want to leave Cair Paravel either, as it was the only true home he had ever known, but he knew he would much rather leave it with Lucy than be left behind _without_ her.

Besides, homesickness aside, it might be a lot of fun to see new places. He and Lucy had often spoken of travel. Sometime after Edmund's twelfth birthday, Lucy had even taken a map and, using a fine quill-pen dipped in black ink, circled all of the places the two of them thought would be the most exciting to visit when they were 'grown up' (with Edmund's direction, because otherwise she might have marked the wrong locations entirely and ruined a perfectly good map).

"Come off it, Lu," he said. "You've always said you wanted to see the Lantern Waste; that's why you let me teach you Lantern Waste French in the first place."

"I want to _see_ it, Ed, not be stuck inside a stuffy building learning the same things I would be learning here anyway."

"It won't be like that," Edmund told her. "They can't keep us indoors all the time. Maybe we'll even get to see the famous lamppost itself in the middle of all those tall trees and thickets."

"It might be terrible lonesome."

"You'll have me, same as you do here."

"That's true." Lucy's face brightened. The way Edmund talked about being sent away to school, it didn't sound so bad. They were older now, maybe a change of scenery and tutors would do them some good after all.

The chamber doors opened and Queen Helen entered, trying not to laugh as she took in her daughter's ruffled appearance, complete with matted down hair on one side and a hopelessly wrinkled dress that had been nice and fresh-looking when she'd put it on the day before.

"Did thou fall asleep in thy clothes again?"

"Yes," she confessed.

"Try to see if thee can keep thy self a mite neater in school," Helen instructed her, reaching out and tucking a piece of her daughter's hair behind one ear. "Be a good lass. Edmund has told thee that thou shall be helping thy servants pack this morning?"

Lucy nodded.

The queen seemed satisfied. "See that thou does just that, then. Thy carriage will be ready to depart early this evening after supper." Looking at Edmund, she added, "Son, thou has sleepies in thy eyes and a bit of dirt on thy chin. Don't forget to wash thy face before going anywhere."

The maidservants that came in to pack Lucy's things were the same dryads and lady faun that had looked after her when she was little.

"We will miss you, Princess," the faun told her, carefully folding some dresses and placing them in a brass-coloured metal trunk.

"I'll write," Lucy promised, tucking some blankets, a tin of sugar cookies, and a small music box into the truck next to the dresses.

"You'll have too many big and important things to study, and too many new friends, to mind writing back to servants." The dryad who had slapped her leg seven years ago patted her cheek affectionately.

"I will so," she insisted rather passionately. "I will! I don't care. I promise I'll write; same as I'm going to write to Mum and Father and tell them all about everything."

The other dryad, quieter by nature, choked back a giggle at the short out-burst by twisting it into a tiny grin.

Edmund was still hanging around, not doing much of anything, sitting motionlessly on the window-seat with one leg up and one hanging down, listening to everything they were saying.

"Don't you have things of your own to pack?" demanded the faun, with a bit of sharpness in her tone.

"I already packed them." Edmund shrugged his shoulders. It wasn't as if he had very much he wanted to bring with him anyway; just his clothing, mostly. Aside from that he only had two things he really cared about.

One was a silver locket Lucy had once given him as a joke present with a lock of her hair in it. He'd long since forgotten the what the joke was (he thought, little sense as it made, that it was something to do with a jackdaw but couldn't remember what was supposed to be so funny about it), yet he still secretly kept the locket. If anyone ever found out and asked, he planned to ramble off some nonsense about keeping it because he never wanted to forget the hysterical look on Queen Helen's face when she'd realized Lucy had cut off a lock of her hair for no apparent reason, denying any claims of it having sentimental value to him.

The other was the stone knife, which he hid under the mahogany floorboards in his chamber. Everyone-except for Lucy, who had promised never to tell-thought he had broken it and thrown it into the Eastern Sea years ago. He had only told that lie because he knew people didn't like the knife's origin, though Helen and Frank tried their best to be understanding of what it meant to him, and decided to give the courtiers a sense of security-even if it was entirely false.

Those two things, he would put in a smaller bag to ride in the carriage with him. No other materials he possessed really mattered.

"Well, don't you have anything else to do?" the faun asked, impatiently.

Edmund could be a little spiteful at times and, for no reason but to annoy the chambermaid, he smirked cockily, picked up a book off of the floor that Lucy had been reading the night before, and sat coolly in an even more sprawled-out manner on his window-seat perch. He hummed loudly to himself as he noisily thumbed through the pages, and occasionally let out a big sigh or yawn to top it off.

"Brat," the faun murmured under her breath.

The dryad currently looking for one of the princess's missing shoes stuck her head under the bed and bit onto her lower lip, lest her amusement _encourage_ the princeling count's behavior.

"See," said the other dryad dryly as she tried to prevent Lucy from dumping _all_ of her books (save for the one Edmund was currently reading) into the trunk, "if while you're at school, the two of you can stay in your _own_ rooms at night."

Lucy looked up from her packing and exchanged an understanding glance with Edmund.

"I'm serious," the dryad told them as Lucy attempted to tuck four of the books the maid had just removed from the truck between two satin brocade dresses. "I hardly think your style of nightly residence and visitations would be permitted in a respectable boarding school." She turned to Lucy with her hands on her hips. "I see where you've hidden the books, Your Highness. You _cannot_ bring all of those; you'll weigh down the carriage!"

"She has a point, you know." The faun took a pillow from behind Edmund's seat and moved it back to the bed where it belonged. "I'm always finding the two of you in one another's chambers."

Lucy rolled her eyes. They were her friends and very dear to her, but they couldn't possibly understand.

Sometimes Edmund didn't like to be alone at night. He never told her flat-out that he was afraid of anything, but Lucy, in her innocent quiet way had figured out as much on her own over time.

When she was younger she'd thought it must be the talking pit bull that sometimes worked on night guard duty for the wing of the castle Edmund's chamber happened to be located in; and she felt sorry for him, thinking she would have been a little uneasy in his place, even though she knew the dog and liked him. But the older she got, the more she came to realize it was nothing to do with the pit bull. When Edmund came into her room he often had his hands clenched and there was cold sweat on his face. She began to suspect he had nightmares, dreams about where-ever he came from before her father took him in. He never told her about his past, except that he'd stolen the stone knife from some sort of winter enchantress and would not part with it, so she knew it couldn't have been very good.

Every once in a while, Lucy would wake up in the middle of the night and sense that Edmund was upset but had not come. At such moments they were connected by a sort of entanglement that was highly illogical. There was no way to explain how she knew he was crying in his chamber on the opposite side of the castle; she simply _did_. And that was when she would climb out of bed, take a sub of candle she kept on hand for such desperate times, and go to him.

Late night visits were fun and a great comfort; it was a terrible shame-Lucy thought-that the chambermaids had been giving her such a hard time about them recently. She didn't see what the big deal was. So they couldn't understand why she went; they never had, so it didn't matter. Only now they seemed to speak as if there were something _wrong_ with their nocturnal habits. Lucy truly didn't comprehend what her being 'a young woman now, not a child' had to do with anything. Edmund caught their drift but ignored it, because it wasn't like that with them. Nor would it ever be, he reasoned, since he would never do that to Lucy. She was an innocent and his best friend, besides. So he would merely crinkle his brow and pretend to be just as confused as she was. He wasn't sure anyone other than Lucy herself actually wholly _believed_ his feigned ignorance, but as he didn't really care about what anyone else thought, that was fine with him.

An hour after the packing was all finished, two after they had returned from the noon meal in Cair Paravel's dinning hall, they were back in Lucy's chamber generally wasting time till they had to leave.

King Frank and Queen Helen would have liked to spend that time with them but couldn't due to an important meeting regarding whether or not to send monies (and if so, how much) to the border between Archenland and Narnia where there was currently a drought.

So Edmund and Lucy were both left up to their own devices for a while.

Edmund loudly bounced a hard wooden ball off of the wall, letting it hit, then slide down, then roll on back to him. Lucy was ignoring the thumping sound, looking down at the pile of books the chambermaids had refused to let her put in the trunk; she was definitely bringing the one with the stories of the golden age with her, not being able to leave that behind for anything, but she wished a few more could come along, too. There would be other books at school, but how could she be sure they would be the same? She also wanted her stuffed dog, only everyone said she was too old for it. Everyone, that is, except Edmund; he'd winked at her and carried it down the corridor to his own chamber and trunk to smuggle to the Lantern Waste for her.

"Pick out three or four you like best," Edmund said, noticing the wistful look on his best friend's face. "They don't watch what I put in my trunk as carefully as yours. I'll just tell them I've decided to bring a collection of swords, if they ask."

Lucy laughed at that. "Thanks."

He shrugged and went back to slamming the ball into the walls.

Turning round, Lucy caught sight of her reflection in the looking-glass on the wall opposite to the one Edmund's ball was crashing into. It was a tall mirror with a glaringly honest reflection and, not for the first time lately, she couldn't help being slightly disappointed with what she saw.

As a little girl, she hadn't had so much as a drop of vanity in her. She'd been careless about her appearance, never giving it much thought. Now, however, she thought about it quite often, only she figured she couldn't be _very_ vain, not if she knew she wasn't attractive-looking. The servants said plenty of kind things about her, yet she realized none of them had ever commented on her looks. Was it because they didn't have anything nice to say about that? Or was she just being too sensitive? When had she begun to feel so insecure? She couldn't recall. She had just woken up one day and known instinctively that she wasn't a beauty and probably wasn't going to be one when she got older, either.

"Edmund," said Lucy, turning from the looking-glass to her friend suddenly, "can I ask you something?"

"Sure," he agreed nonchalantly. "What is it?"

"Do you…" Her voice faltered slightly and she had to swallow before going on. "Do you think I'm at all pretty?" Beautiful was too much to hope for, she knew she'd never be that, but maybe she might pass for pretty. That would be nice.

The question seemed-to Edmund-to have come out of thin air. He noticed a lot of things about his friend, but for some reason her recent discontentment with her looks had gone right over his head. Maybe it was because he didn't see anything the matter with how she looked and assumed she saw the same things he did when she peered at herself in a looking-glass.

Caught off guard, the automatic, defensive answer was what came out of his mouth; not the truth. "No."

Lucy blinked at him, her expression withdrawn, a little hurt. "No?"

He hadn't anticipated that reaction from her. Growing up with her, he'd always been able to say blunt-even sarcastic-comments about practically anything (with the sole exception of Aslan, of course) and nothing he said ever phased Lucy. At least, it never had _before_.

"Oh." She looked at her reflection again, dejectedly. "What do you think I look like, then, Ed? I mean, honestly."

"Lu," Edmund said, in a gentler (albeit awkward) tone of voice, "I think you look like _you_. Like you always have. Just yourself."

"Me," she repeated flatly. "As in just myself."

"Right," he said, not seeing what the problem was.

"Oh."

"Oh, what?"

"Nothing." She sighed. "Just, oh."

"Lucy, what's the matter?"

"Nothing." She forced a smile. "Really."

"Lu…"

"Ed?" Lucy leafed through the pages of her favorite book and stopped at a picture of the high king's consort, Queen Susan; she was drawn as an utterly beautiful raven-haired woman with light blue eyes and a comely smile. "Do you think I'll ever look anything like her?"

"No." He shouldn't have found it funny, but the conversation was making him strangely uncomfortable, and he couldn't help thinking it odd that Lucy would compare herself to a mythical character, and so a rather 'yeah, right' kind of laugh escaped from his throat and into the tension-filled air of the chamber.

"I see."

"Lu…"

"I'm going for a walk in the royal apple orchard." She closed the book and put it down on the window-seat.

"I'll come with you." Edmund put his ball down on the window-seat beside the book.

Lucy shook her head. "Thanks, but I think I want to be alone for a little while."

With that she turned left the chamber, biting onto her lower lip.

Edmund stayed behind, standing in the middle of the room with a sick feeling in his stomach like he had just lamed an aged horse or kicked a harmless puppy.


	3. A Chapter Concerning two Apples

" _Now, Corin," King Peter said anxiously to the young visiting Archenland prince given into his charge, "we're here to deal with a purely political matter, not for amusement. Please, if you value the future good of my country at all, try not to break anything." He paused for a moment, uncertain he trusted the boy to go off on his own without first hemming him in with more specific instructions. "Better still, don't touch anything here to begin with. Have you got that?"_

_If it had been anyone else saying that to him, Corin would have rolled his eyes, but he knew he couldn't do that to the high king of Narnia. He sighed heavily and nodded._

_Peter sighed, too. Of all days for King Lune of Archenland to saddle him with Corin! If he'd absolutely had to send one of his sons, why couldn't it be Corin's twin brother Cor? Cor may have had his shortcomings like any other ten year old boy, but he was a lot less hot-headed than the alternative and he was blessed with a much more diplomatic personality than his impulsive twin._

_Today was a very important day: the day he planned to attempt the beginnings of a truce between the trees, himself, and his other subjects._

_A large number of the dryads had been questioning Peter's right to rule, mostly claiming he was-at only fourteen years of age-too young to rule Narnia fairly, that he was just a child. That wasn't really fair; after all, he'd just saved their country from an evil witch who could shape-shift into a snake. It was hardly his fault that there was a prophecy that stated the man who would deliver them from the evil green serpent would become their next ruler. He hadn't even known what he was doing at first; he came from a different world entirely, a place called England. When he'd stumbled in, he hadn't realized…and now he was too involved to back down without a fight. He was ready to be king. Everyone else, neighboring countries included, had accepted him, because the great Lion Aslan had said they ought to. Only that group of dryads were resisting._

_And on this afternoon there was supposed to be a special dryad market in the Shuddering Woods. It seemed the perfect chance to show politeness and harmony despite the recent difference of opinions._

_Peter watched nervously as Corin bounded off, fighting back an involuntarily wince at the boy's lumbering gait when compared to the nimble, smooth movements of the birch children he could see playing only a few feet away._

_Master Tumnus, a faun and the king's adviser, whispered, "I will follow him, Your Majesty."_

" _Watch him like a hawk," Peter said quietly through his teeth._

" _Yes, Sire." Master Tumnus bowed and walked off._

_Forcing himself to relax, thinking that the dryads might sense his tension and start wondering if he was plotting against them, he started to look at the stalls and booths. They were all made of sticks, fallen branches, leaves, and other materials from nature, but each one was as different as the dryad minding it._

_One was supported by gleaming silver branches and shaded with a lush green banana leaf, while the one beside it was cherry-wood strung with pale green, ebony black, and earth brown acorns on display, jingling like bells whenever the wind passed through them._

_King Peter nodded to a friendly-looking willow girl with a great oak grandfather, and smiled at a sweet but unintelligent-faced chipmunk who he gathered they kept for a pet._

_At the stall next to theirs, a middle-aged dryad with bright red hair and green-tipped knobby fingers was selling clumps of something soft and brown that looked like chocolate._

_Assuming it was good to eat (since he noticed the grandfather oak buying some and then placing a piece in the willow girl's open mouth), not quite realizing that food for dryads and food for humans wasn't exactly the same, Peter cleared his throat and said he'd take two pieces if the seller would be so kind as to tell him a price._

_The red-haired dryad looked discomfited; she'd never seen a human try to eat their kind of food before, and wondered if the young king was teasing or in earnest. He appeared serious enough and her family wasn't one of those who personally opposed the new king, so she told him how much and he counted out some copper coins and handed them over to her._

_She didn't count the metal clicking against her fingers right away, too busy watching to see if the high king would really eat what he had just purchased._

_Sure enough, Peter put a piece into his mouth. But he did not find it at all nice; it tasted like dirt mixed with dry chalk and a few drops of mud in the middle. He spat it out into his hand and threw it away when he thought-or hoped-no one was watching too closely._

_The other piece he gave away to a little birch girl that smiled at him and asked if it was fun living inside a castle and having people give you presents all day long until it was time for bed. The child had nonsense ideas about how kings spent their time, but Peter didn't bother correcting her and was glad enough to give her a treat since he himself couldn't get it down at all._

_From the booth at his back, the high king heard a faint giggle. Someone had witnessed his humiliation with obvious amusement at his discomfort and he turned to see who it was._

_Standing within a marvelous booth displaying strange fruit, most of which appeared to be made of precious metals or jewels, was the most beautiful girl Peter had ever seen in his life. She was fair-skinned with dark hair, blue eyes, and elegant (non-dryad) hands that extended into lily-white fingers which played with the stem of a silver apple. She wore a simple gown of purple and white, tied with a sash of scarlet velvet around the middle._

" _Hullo," said King Peter, suddenly aware, thanks to the heat he felt in his face, that he was blushing._

" _Hello." She placed her hands on her hips. "See anything you want?"_

" _Yes!" he blurted out, not thinking._

_Her smirk of amusement deepened, revealing a single dimple in her chin he hadn't noticed before._

" _I'm sorry…I mean, I meant…" stammered Peter, beyond embarrassed by this point. "Um…" His eyes scanned the sapphire blueberries and solid gold oranges hastily, searching for a more formal topic. "These," he said at last, picking up two ruby cherries connected by a copper-and-glass stem. "How much do you want for these?"_

" _Well, if I were a dryad, or even supportive of the dryad resistance," she told him, batting her eyes briefly, "I would ask you to give up your right to the throne."_

" _You aren't a dryad, then?" He had suspected as much._

" _I have some dryad blood in me, but, no, I am not truly one of them. I'm human like you. Once I was a duchess of Ettinsmoor, but the witch you defeated destroyed my family and I had no where else to go. Because of my bloodline, the shuddering wood dryads took me in."_

" _I'm so sorry," he said softly._

" _Don't be," she said. "I'm glad it was you that saved Narnia. Oh, and don't buy the cherries." She picked up the silver apple and offered it to him. "This is better, trust me."_

" _What price do you ask for it?" It was pointless, really; he was so enchanted by then he would have given her anything she asked for._

" _I'm off in a few minutes," she told the king, lowering her voice. "The apple is yours if you will take your tea with me; I have food that you can actually eat, if you were wondering."_

_The high king grinned and took the apple from her soft hands. "It's a deal. What's your name?"_

" _Susan." She took a step backwards in the booth, going a little further in._

" _I'm Peter."_

_Susan nodded and twirled a lock of her dark hair with her pinky finger. "Yes, I know."_

_Of course she did; everyone here knew who he was! What was it about this girl that made him so frazzled? He had spoken to neighboring princesses before and kept his head perfectly. Not so with the current situation...he thought the tips of his fingers had gone numb!_

_Peter gazed into her eyes and she gazed right back into his. The moment would have been flawlessly beautiful if only it hadn't been wrecked by Tumnus and Corin running towards them. Corin's face looked guilty as sin. Tumnus looked ready either to scream or cry, overwrought with stress._

" _Your Majesty!"_

" _Yes, what is it?" he snapped, tearing his eyes away from Susan's face._

_The faun nudged the prince who then blurted, "Remember how you told me not touch anything?"_

" _Ye-" Peter began, his eyes narrowing. "Oh, by the Lion's mane, Corin, you didn't!"_

_An angry family of pines with their yew cousins were coming towards them in a furious mob._

" _He did," Master Tumnus stated the obvious._

" _Great," moaned Peter._

" _Sire?" The faun's lips were close to his ear._

" _Yes?" The mob was getting closer._

" _Can I offer a word of advice?"_

" _By all means."_

" _Run," said Tumnus flatly. "Now."_

_And they all took off._

_Peter was sorry to leave Susan, but that was all right, he knew they'd see each other again soon. After all, he had to invite her to a banquet at Cair Paravel to pay for the apple since he hadn't taken tea with her. He had promised her a meal and his company as payment, and he wouldn't fancy developing a reputation for stealing from his subjects._

With a sigh of contentment, Lucy closed _Myths and Legends of the Golden Age_.

The tale of High King Peter meeting his true love, who would later become his wife and Narnia's queen, at the dryad market was one of her all-time favorites. Edmund didn't care for those kinds of stories as much, though he usually listened politely enough when Lucy read them aloud. All and all, he preferred the tales that took place when the high king and Cor and Corin of Archenland were all older, especially the ones with the three of them fighting in battles, and all the more so the versions where the battle strategies were explained. The battles made sense, whereas all that mushy love-at-first-sight nonsense about buying silver apples and flirting and running-gag jokes about troublesome princes weren't all that fascinating to him. Edmund was rather of the opinion that romance in mythology as a general rule was all rot.

Who was to say the versions of the tale that claimed Susan was a governor's daughter from the Lone Islands who had an arranged marriage with King Peter of Narnia wasn't more accurate than all that stuff about her being a lost duchess and part dryad? That is, if there even had ever been a real Peter and Susan; if any of the members of the ancient court of Narnia had truly existed to begin with. And, supposing there _was_ a Peter of Narnia, there wasn't any proof that he had actually been a high king. He might, for all history if stretched could claim to prove, have merely been an army general; or the son of an army general, if he'd really been only thirteen or fourteen when he saw and fought in his first battle. That whole fairy-tale about him coming from another world was probably all tosh.

It wasn't that Edmund was an overly logical skeptic who spurned and scoffed at the idea of there being such royal persons in the olden days-he didn't, not entirely. It was more that, while he had seen things both fantastic and horrific in his life, he had seen a point-either for good or for evil-in most of what he'd witnessed. Like the stone knife: he knew it was supposed to be evil and he knew it was real as corn; and keeping it secret was a genuine concern of his. He knew that the stone knife being real was important knowledge, only he couldn't see the same urgency in the stories Lucy read.

Which did not mean he didn't appreciate them for what they were, or that he encouraged Lucy to stop believing in her myths; not for the world would have done a thing like that! But he had his own practicalities and tastes, and they differed from hers on some matters, that was all there was to it.

Sitting up straighter in the carriage while it rattled over a small hole in the dirt road they were traveling along, still holding the book in her hands, Lucy looked over at Edmund.

He'd been asleep, only the jolt had woken him.

"Are we there yet?" he grumbled, reaching up and rubbing at his puffy eyes.

"No," said Lucy, "but we should get there later today."

"Good," yawned Edmund. They'd been traveling for days and days, maybe even weeks (he had lost count, and Lucy hadn't even been trying to keep it in the first place) and he was starting to wonder if they were even going to reach the school before the semester was set to begin.

"Ed…" Lucy put a hand over her mouth to hold back a shriek of laughter.

"What?"

She rummaged around, pulled out a fair-sized white handkerchief with her initials embroidered in the corner, and handed it to him. "Here, keep this, you need it more than I do."

"Why?" Edmund wrinkled his nose at her.

Lucy touched the side of her face, slid two of her fingers down to the right corner of her mouth, tapped it emphatically, and raised her eyebrows

He got the hint. Apparently there was a line of drool left over from when he was sleeping dripping out of the corner of his mouth. Hastily, he wiped it off and tucked the handkerchief away at the bottom of the small carpet bag containing the stone knife and the silver locket.

Edmund was gladder than ever that Lucy was not the sort of person who held a grudge. The journey, while it did have some enjoyable aspects, was long and-at times-tedious enough _with_ a cheerful companion.

He couldn't help but think that if anyone had said or done something that brought an expression to his face at all like the one he'd seen on Lucy's when he told her she wasn't pretty, he would have _let_ them arrive at their destination with a line of drool dripping out of their mouth just for spite. And he certainly wouldn't have laughed and joked with them during the trip, either.

Thankfully, Lucy wasn't like anything like him in that sense, and she had come back in from the apple orchard that day genuinely cheerful and friendly, as though the awkward moment of pain and tension between them had never happened. Edmund was more than a little relieved by this, happy enough to ignore the wave of guilt he felt whenever he remembered that unsettling conversation.

The feeling of the roads under the wheels of the carriage began to charge, as did the rhythm of the hoof-beats coming from the horses pulling it. They were on a different kind of ground now.

Sticks and brambles that had fallen in a recent storm and had yet to be cleared away cracked as the royal carriage rolled over them.

Sweet, fresh, wild northern air came in through the windows, and Edmund and Lucy breathed in deep, suddenly feeling with absurd, unwarranted conviction that they were in for a perfectly lovely time.

Leaning out the window for as long as was permitted (quite frankly, till the driver noticed and ordered her to stick her head back inside), Lucy thought she heard a crash nearby, only she soon forgot about it when no one else reacted or commented on it. She figured it must have been a tree without a dryad falling over; one close enough to hear but not to see.

"Won't be much longer now!" the driver called back to them.

"Oh, Ed, look!" Lucy pointed out of her window to something yellow twinkling in a distant group of trees. "Did you see that? I think it was _The Lamppost_!"

"Probably," he agreed.

"This is wonderful," sighed the princess. "I've been wanting to get there, but now I think I almost wish this ride would just go on and on for ever-if it's going to be like _this_ from here on out!"

"Lu, look!" He grinned and pointed to something with a coat whiter than freshly fallen snow and gleaming silver antlers rushing as gracefully as a ballet dancer on his glossy stick-thin legs by an area only a short ways off from the carriage. "A white stag!" Most stag breeds were not rare in Narnia, but white ones-the albino stags-were; rumour was the only place they still lived free in the wild was the Lantern Waste.

"How beautiful!" She clasped her hands, her eyes shinning brightly.

They went on like that for two and a half hours, oohing and ahhing like small children on a picnic, taking in more wonder than they could handle yet not wanting any of it to stop, before there came a "Whoa!" and the driver pulled back on the reins.

"We've arrived!"

Two faun footmen took Lucy's hand and helped her out of the carriage. They would have helped Edmund, too, but he was quick and had already gotten both feet on the ground by the time they reached him, so it was all rather pointless.

The boarding school was a great red-brick mansion, five stories high, not counting the single tower that rose from the left corner in a circular shape making all the rooms in that section round instead of square. There were wide dull gray stone steps sporting one or two fallen red and yellow leaves that the wind had blown askew from the closest oak tree. The roof was a rough burnt copper colour, completed with showy brass shingles that shone prettily in both the sunlight and moonlight alike.

Edmund and Lucy's carriage was not the only one currently parked out front; there were at least eight or nine others.

New pupils, Lucy found herself thinking, squinting down the line, wondering if any of the people in those carriages would become her friends this semester, just like me and Ed!

"No!" cried a shrill voice.

Edmund whipped his head around to see what the cause of the commotion was.

"No, Mother, please, I don't want to go to school here! I don't _like_ it! It's not even _clean_ , I bet. I'll get lice! What about my perfect hygiene? I'll get infected! What if I fall fatally ill and die or something? No! No! No!" shouted the crier-a puny blonde boy only a few months younger than Lucy-as he held onto the side of his carriage for dear life.

"Does he know something we don't?" Lucy whispered to Edmund, confused; for now the boy was weeping in earnest and kicking at his mother, father, and servants as they tried to pry him off of the family's tin-coloured carriage.

"I have no idea," Edmund laughed, enjoying the show way more than he should have been.

"I want to speak to the Narnian Consul! This can't be legal. I'm going to lodge a disposition against all of you!" sobbed the boy, tears streaming down his face.

The school's physical education teacher, a slow-witted, bored-looking man with an ugly beaded necklace round his neck dropping down to a shinny over-sized silver pedant in the shape of a sphere, asked lazily if there was anything he could do to help.

"Please, Mr…" the boy's mother began.

"Gumpas, my lady…"

"Alberta."

"Ah, Lady Alberta, what seems to be the problem?"

"My son is kicking up some fuss. Literally."

"Eustace has school issues," put in the boy's father, Harold. Then, "And abandonment issues, and trust issues, and cleanliness issues…"

"They get the idea!" snapped the boy; Eustace.

"Let me help," Gumpas said, sticking out his chest proudly. "I'm great with children."

"Be my guest." Alberta finally gave up her grip on her son.

"Now, look, see here, lad," began Gumpas, reaching up to pull Eustace down.

In a panic, Eustace kicked Gumpas so hard that he went flying nearly two feet and hit his head on the front steps.

"Oh, no," said Eustace to himself suddenly. "I hope that wasn't the consul!"

"Princess Lucy." One of the footmen tapped her on the shoulder.

"Y-yes?"

"We've lost your trunk," the faun confessed sadly, hanging his head a little.

That explained the crash from earlier, then; it hadn't been a fallen tree after all.

"We're going to try and find it on the way back," the driver told her, coming up behind the faun. "In the meantime, we're dreadfully sorry. What will you do for clothing?" The dress she was wearing was a nice one, but it was wrinkled from sitting in the carriage all day. And surely, they thought, the Narnian princess would want something fresh to wear later.

"Borrow something of Edmund's, of course!" Lucy stared at them as if they had both grown five heads. Sure, her best friend's things would be a little big on her, but she could easily make do, and she knew he wouldn't mind sharing.

The other faun chuckled. Lucy was probably the only girl he knew who wouldn't fuss at losing her luggage and having to wear boy's clothes. Any other female-all the more so, princess-would have looked aghast, half-panicked, perhaps thrown a fit, and finally resorted to befriending as many girls her own age and size as she could in hopes of having a decent dress to borrow. Not so with King Frank's unconventional daughter; she never ceased to amaze Cair Paravel's servants with her oddities.

"Before we go," said the driver, "let me make sure: do you at least have a quill pen, a clean handkerchief, and your mother's list of daily fruits and vegetables with you?"

"Sort of." She had the list crumbled up somewhere-likely the carriage floor-and had mostly forgotten about it, the quill pen was in her small beaded clutch along with a comb and a few gold coins, and Edmund had her previously clean handkerchief.

The driver sighed heavily. "I hope you will be on your best behavior and remember to write your parents often, Princess."

She nodded earnestly.

A little embarrassed, the driver bent down, gave her a quick hug, straightened himself out, then hurried back to the carriage. Although he had known little Lucy since she was a baby, they had never been very close, and he hadn't expected to feel so sad leaving her behind at school now.

When she finally had a chance to look back at Eustace, Lucy saw that they must have succeeded in removing him at long last, because he was flat on his bottom, scowling, a painfully well-polished metal trunk tossed haphazardly on the ground to his left. Also, there was a cloud of dust where the carriage had previously been.

Eustace caught Lucy and Edmund's eyes, gave them a nasty look, then grumbled, "What are you two staring at?" before taking off, dragging his trunk behind him.

If he had been less rude, Edmund would have felt a little sorry for him, as the boy's eyes _were_ quite blood-shot and he seemed at a lost as to what to do with himself, but since he was clearly determined to be a little tick for the time being, the count didn't bother.

"Do you think he's all right?" Lucy asked.

"I don't know." Edmund glanced at the now open front door of the school.

"He seems unhappy."

"Of course he does, I would be unhappy too if I had a face like an enraged halibut that just sucked a lemon."

"Edmund!"

"Sorry."

"Now what?"

"I guess we go in with everyone else," said Edmund, grabbing the side of his trunk (the fauns had brought it over when they came to explain about Lucy's lost luggage), and dragging it behind him as he headed for the front door.

Lucy planned to stick by Edmund's side the whole time, but she lost track of him in the crowd, and accidentally banged into a girl her own age with wide walnut-coloured eyes and mouse-brown hair when she tried to find him again.

A small collection of five or six slim literature volumes tumbled to the ground at the time of the collision, falling from the girl's startled arms.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there. Here, let me help you with that," apologized Lucy, bending down and picking up the books.

"It's all right," the girl said, laughing a little. "It happens all the time."

"I'm Lucy Pevensie, what's your name?"

"Lucy Pevensie?" the girl gasped. "As in the king of Narnia's daughter?" She couldn't believe that a _princess_ had just gotten down on her knees and helped her pick up her books.

"Yes, please don't curtsey or anything. I'd much rather you didn't." She noticed the girl was in danger of doing just that.

"Your highness."

"It's Lucy."

"Lucy," the girl repeated, awkwardly, shaking her head. "I feel like it will be dreadfully disrespectful, calling a princess by her first name."

"It isn't, really, it's not."

"I'm Marjorie." The girl offered her hand and began to relax, now that she saw how informal-even ordinary-the princess was. "Marjorie Preston; from Archenland. You come from Cair Paravel; what's it like to live in the east, by the sea and everything?"

"It's very nice," Lucy told her.

"Do you get to swim whenever you want?"

"Not whenever, but very nearly, I suppose. My best friend, Edmund, he's an excellent swimmer-much better than I am. Do you swim?"

"Don't get much chance," Marjorie sighed. "But I do when I can. I love being in the water. I hope there's a lake near here to swim in; there's a real lovely one with ducks and geese near my home."

"Are they _talking_ birds?"

"No, there's fewer talking animals the further south you go. I've met ever so many on my trip here, though."

"There he is!" exclaimed Lucy, having spotted the back of a familiar dark head in the crowd.

"Who?"

"Edmund, my friend. I lost him a little while ago."

"The one who swims?"

"Yes." Lucy grabbed her new friend's wrist. "Come and meet him."

Marjorie seemed perfectly fine with the idea of meeting her new chum's best chum; until, that is, he started to turn around and she caught sight of his face. Lucy found she was tugging and that Marjorie had stopped moving, her breath caught in her throat.

"Your hig-I mean, Lucy-I can't go and meet him, I _can't_."

"Why not?" Lucy crinkled her brow.

"I've forgotten something."

"What is it?"

"My…my…name…"

Marjorie was shaking and her cheeks were bright pink, almost red. Lucy wondered what was wrong with her. "Marjorie?"

"That's it!" She looked a little relieved. "Thank you."

"Are you feeling unwell?" Lucy asked, concerned.

"No, no, I'm fine," said Marjorie, too shakily for her statement to sound even remotely true. "It's just…" She lowered her voice. "Why didn't you tell me your friend was so handsome?"

Handsome? Edmund? Lucy supposed he was, technically speaking, but she had never really thought much about anything regarding Edmund's looks before, and was a bit stunned that it was the first thing Marjorie seemed to notice.

"It's just Edmund." Lucy giggled and squeezed Marjorie's trembling hand. "He's a completely normal person, I swear."

"Lu!" Edmund noticed her approaching and pushed backwards through the new pupils until he reached her. "There you are."

Marjorie clamed up all over again, gazing at him stupidly with a demented half-smile on her face.

"I'm Preston Marjorie," she blurted out after an uncomfortable pause when Edmund noticed how intently she was staring at him. "I mean," she fumbled, her face positively scarlet by this point, "Marjorie Preston. That's me."

He shook her hand. "Edmund Pevensie." He had long ago taken the surname of the royal family; no one at Cair seemed to mind, especially not Frank who would have given him the moon if he'd taken a particular liking to it, and he didn't even think anymore of how strange it was that he-someone of no direct blood relation to the royal family-used the grand surname so nonchalantly.

"You're royal, too, then?"

"Sort of." He thought about it for a minute, wondering how to explain and whether or not doing so would really be worth the trouble. "Nobly-born, anyway."

"He's the count of the Western Marsh," Lucy put in.

"If you're the count of the Western Marsh," Marjorie wanted to know, "why do you live with the royal family at Cair Paravel?"

"I suppose the Western Marsh does just fine without me," Edmund commented, a touch more bitterly than need truly called for.

"I see…" Marjorie stammered. She thought she must have upset him, but she didn't see _how_. There hadn't been anything so very alarming or tactless in her question, had there? She didn't understand; couldn't understand.

"Come on, Lu." Edmund grabbed Lucy's wrist. "I think we should stand closer to the front of the staircase. If anyone's coming to address all of us, that's the only place they're likely to enter from."

Marjorie followed them, at some distance, feeling painfully foolish. She wished she knew what on earth she was supposed to be doing. When were any tutors or professors or teachers going to show? The only one she had seen was Mr. Gumpas, but as he was unconscious, he hardly counted. (She hadn't seen Eustace kick him, and so hadn't a clue as to what was the matter with the man.)

A sharp whistle so intense that everyone instantly placed their hands over their ears echoed through the hallowed hall and, sure enough, on the staircase, as Edmund had predicted, a thin, middle-aged woman, smartly dressed, with her long gray hair up in a tight bun, came into view.

The whistle was as long as an index finger and made of silver; it was hanging from the woman's neck.

"Are you Mrs. Macready?" a girl with wispy, shoulder-length hair wearing a long wintergreen cape over her thin cream-coloured dress called up to her. "The housekeeper for the girls' dormitories?"

The woman looked slightly depressed and her lips curled downwards. "I'm afraid so."

Lucy didn't think she was going to like this woman very much; she seemed a bit grouchy. Marjorie studied her cuticles to keep herself from feeling afraid of the housekeeper, thinking her quite an imposing person.

"Excuse me," Eustace shouted at the top of his voice as if Mrs. Macready was deaf, though that might have been because his own ears were still ringing from the whistle. "Does the Narnian Consul live anywhere in this area…or at least pay this school occasional visits?"

"Um," Lucy leaned over and whispered in Eustace's ear, "the consul lives in the east, only a day's ride from Cair Paravel."

"Shut up, you… _easterner_." Eustace folded arms across his chest and walked away from her.

"Oh, give it up, it only makes him worse if you try to be nice to him." Edmund touched Lucy's arm consolingly.

Ignoring Eustace, Mrs. Macready said, "Is this it, then? Isn't there anyone else?"

"Don't think so, Ma'am," said the girl in the wintergreen cape; "it's just us. Everyone's already in."

There were a lot of new students, plenty of them girls and thus automatically her responsibility, but not as many as the housekeeper had secretly been dreading. "Small favors."

A bit of silence ensued. Someone coughed twice. Eustace sneezed and then blamed it on the girl in the wintergreen cape. Marjorie willed herself not to bite her fingernails by standing with her hands behind her back as a last desperate resort. Lucy and Edmund exchanged glances of mild amusement and tried not to burst out laughing in unison, especially since nothing that was happening at the moment was really all that funny.

"Before I introduce the headmaster, I would like to go over a few rules." Mrs. Macready cleared her throat decorously. "No sliding on any banisters is permitted on the premises. There will be no shouting, or running, no improper use of the dumbwaiter, no…"

Bored, Edmund was reaching out to touch a porcelain statue of a snowy owl.

The housekeeper's eyes zeroed in on him: "…touching of the historical artifacts!"

Edmund got the drift and stepped away from the owl.

"And above all," said Mrs. Macready sharply, "there shall be no thinkin' that you can pull anything over the eyes of the headmaster and attempting mischief on him. Headmaster Coriakin is a star; you cannot fool a star, they see everything."

Eustace snorted and the girl in the evergreen cape hissed for him to be quiet.

"Delightful introduction, Mrs. Macready," said a deep voice from behind her. "But I think I will take it from here."

"Yes, Master." She stepped aside.

Headmaster Coriakin was a thick-set man with short brownish-gray hair and a matching neatly-trimmed beard. He wore a long dark gold sleeveless overcoat on top of a brown-and-green doublet.

He was as unlike Mrs. Macready as a rough piece of chafed glass is like a diamond, and Lucy felt more at ease when she caught sight of him. The headmaster seemed like a much more agreeable person than the housekeeper; his mouth, though somber and distinguished at the moment, looked like it knew how to laugh when there was something to laugh about.

Everyone listened as he welcomed them all to his school and explained that he had high expectations for each and every one of them.

Then Coriakin motioned to his right, where four other persons stood on the staircase. The first was an elderly man in a tweed suit with wild white-gray hair and a beard less smooth-looking than Coriakin's; he was the history professor, Digory Kirke. The second was a little older and much thinner than Professor Kirke, and had an unnerving habit of rubbing his much-too-white knuckles together constantly; he was the science teacher, Andrew Ketterley. The other two were not teachers but, rather, third-year students, a boy and a girl a couple years older than Edmund; last year's valedictorians, Caspian X of Telmar and Anne Featherstone.

Both Valedictorians matched up almost frighteningly to the stereotypical ideals of handsomeness and beauty. Caspian was nearly two heads taller than Edmund, olive-skinned with dark hair that reached his shoulder-blades, and there was a line of dark stubble on his face, evidently the beginnings of an early beard. He was dressed in an odd combination of a Temarine-style tunic and a Narnian-style leather jerkin. Anne possessed a pale, flawless rose-leaf complexion and white-blonde hair reminiscent of winter-wheat or spools of gossamer silk. Her dress, almost a gown for all its flare, was white and red velvet with threads of real gold and silver on the patterns at the elegant gathered sleeves.

Neither Valedictorian seemed to fancy the other one very much; Anne and Caspian's faces bore vague expressions of resigned territorial house-cats on a temporary truce. It didn't take a genius to see that he thought very little of her and that she quite disliked him.

Lucy didn't think she and Anne Featherstone would get along well; but Caspian had a nice face, so she thought they might be friends. Marjorie despaired of being in the good favor of someone like Anne, too beautiful and haughty to give her the time of day, yet she admired her from afar and secretly nursed the idea of a possible future friendship blooming between them, as impossible as it was. Edmund didn't give thought to either of valedictorians, too busy listening to Coriakin and watching for Lucy's reactions to nearly everything the headmaster said out of the corner of his eye. If he noticed anyone besides Coriakin, it was Professor Kirke, for, though he couldn't explain it, he felt as if the history professor was someone he could possibly really talk to without feeling judged or condemned-someone who understood.

"Now," Coriakin announced, "I would like for you all to meet someone who, as long as you are here, you must feel is your friend and helper. My daughter, Lilliandil."

A door directly behind Coriakin, which everyone had thought was only a wall, opened and a slender girl a year Caspian's senior, so luminescently stunning that even Anne Featherstone paled in comparison, yellow hair tumbling down her glowing back almost to her thighs, entered. In her hands she carried a silver candlestick, and there were traces of an exquisitely bright smile as warm as the sun playing on her mouth. Her glittering dress was a single long garment of shimmering snow-white cloth that left her arms bare.

Everyone was captivated; especially the boys. She was so _bright_! No one seemed able to tear their eyes away.

"Welcome," said Lilliandil, her smile widening. "I am your guide."

"She's quite beautiful," Eustace blurted out.

At least half the people in the room turned to stare at him, their brows crinkled.

"I mean for the daughter of a headmaster who goes about in a dressing-gown and runs a school that's probably invested with lice and ticks," he countered.

Lucy's gaze finally shifted from the beautiful star's daughter to Edmund and she felt a feeling she hadn't expected to feel; a pang of sadness mixed with what, if she had ever truly known it previously, she would have had to call jealously.

His eyes were no wider than those of the other boys, not really, yet he stared twice as intently, clearly amazed, and perhaps a touch frightened, into Lilliandil's face. The expression on Edmund's face was in fact so blaringly intense that Lilliandil, even though she had tons of other eyes currently on her, noticed and actually made eye-contact with him for a moment. Lucy didn't have to ask her best friend if he thought the star's daughter was pretty or not; she already knew the answer.

After a short speech painfully similar to her father's only much more carefully listened to by the male students than the former had been, Lilliandil led them all through several corridors, chambers, wings, and branches, explaining what each area's function was. The valedictorians, history professor, science teacher, Headmaster, and housekeeper followed and nodded blandly to pretty much everything she said, most of them having heard the same speech enough times already to have repeated it word for word in their sleep.

It was getting late when they reached a corridor with stain-glass windows and a shinny floor that looked like a queer mix of cobblestone and marble.

On the sill of one window barely an arm's length from where Edmund stood, there was a basket of fruit (apples, oranges, and a strange kind of toffee-fruit that only grew in the Lantern Waste) on display.

Suddenly hungry, Lucy's stomach growled.

Edmund was the only one who noticed; and, looking both ways, he plucked an apple out of the basket, cleaned it on his sleeve, and offered it to her.

She took it from his out-stretched hand with a grateful smile. "Thanks."

They thought no one, except for possibly Marjorie (who was quite indifferent, as her attention was divided between them and Anne Featherstone's dress), noticed the exchange, but Professor Kirke did, out of the corner of his eye.

The professor said nothing about it then. He only watched them…and wondered…


	4. Rooms and Maps

"This is it?" Eustace stood in the doorway, holding onto the side of his trunk, his nose turned up as if he smelled something rotten. "This is where I'm supposed to live? Well, what a pretty kettle of fish! This is a real piece of doo-doo."

" _This_ ," retorted Caspian, pushing him aside with one brisk shove, "is _my room_."

"I rest my case," Eustace muttered.

"That doesn't even make sense, Useless," Caspian sigh-yawned.

"My name is _Eustace_!"

"Could have fooled me," said Edmund, entering the dorm room behind the both of them.

Caspian turned and smiled at him, glad that he had a chance of getting along with at least _one_ of his new roommates.

Because the other two boys he had used to share the room with, both a good deal older than he himself was, had graduated at the end of the last semester, Headmaster Coriakin had gone and assigned two new students to take their place. Edmund didn't seem so bad, thankfully, though Caspian couldn't really be certain since the boy wasn't a very open or talkative chap and thus hadn't said very much previous to his last remark; but Eustace…well, he was going to be a real problem.

"Where am I even supposed to sleep?" whined Eustace, his voice shrill and headache-inducing. "There aren't any beds!" He looked round, despairingly, at the three wide pieces of cloth hanging down from the thick wooden beams on the ceiling.

"Were you not listening when Headmaster Coriakin explained, quite plainly, that every room in the boy's dormitory has hammocks? Only the girls' rooms have beds."

No, he hadn't, actually; he'd been too busy mocking the 'old coot wearing a dressing-gown' in his mind to hear anything worth knowing when the headmaster spoke, and somehow he had missed it when Lilliandil went over the matter again.

Now that Eustace Clarence Scrubb realized there wasn't going to be any chance of having a bed, never-mind one near the window, which he desperately needed in case he stopped breathing in his sleep thanks to all the dust about this horrid place, he was indignant. "What? Why do the girls get beds, and we don't? It isn't _fair_!"

"Because they're _ladies_ ," said Caspian shortly. "It's only proper. Propriety is very big at this school; for example, I am sure the princess of Narnia will have her own room, as is her right."

At the mention of Lucy, Edmund's ears pricked up, but he didn't say anything; he had already figured all that stuff Caspian was saying on his own; it was painfully obvious to everyone except Eustace. And, really, it was all for the better. It would be much harder to visit her on certain nights when he couldn't be alone (although, now that he thought of it, he wouldn't be alone: Caspian and Eustace would always be there-only, while Caspian did seem like a bearable sort of person, neither of them struck him as particularly comforting; and he would sooner have eaten glass than have sought condolence from two boys who were near strangers to him anyhow) if she had roommates. Sneaking away from his own roommates wouldn't be difficult, so long as Caspian minded his own business and Eustace was kept preoccupied with his constant complaining about every little thing. The Macready, now, if she patrolled the corridor the girls' dormitories were in, she might be an obstacle. But Edmund could deal; he'd seen worse. Lucy's chambermaids back at Cair would be disappointed in him still going to see her same as before, of course, considering they had cautioned them both against such nightly visitations, but he did not bend his life around doing things for the sake of pleasing servants-even if they were friends.

"First off, what princess?" Eustace demanded.

"Oh," said Edmund coolly, raising his brow, enjoying the moment too much, "the girl you yelled at before; the one you told to shut up."

"That was the princess?" He looked shocked for a half-second before his lips curled back up into a sneer and his brows furrowed. "Well, it doesn't matter, all that nonsense is really lowering girls, you know. And, furthermore, I'm a republication."

"Um, your parents are members of the nobility, Stupid!" Caspian scoffed.

"So?"

"So you can't be a republication and keep titles…or monies from the government, which would be your entire inheritance," he explained, rubbing his temples, feeling a migraine coming on.

"How do you know who my parents are anyway?"

"I saw Lord and Lady Scrubb trying to pry you off the carriage from the window; I think _all_ the third-year students having science lessons on that side of the building while the new first-years were arriving did."

"Lovely," muttered Eustace under his breath. "I'll have to lodge a disposition against _them_ , too, now."

"You keep threatening to 'lodge a disposition'," Caspian said, plopping down into his hammock with a sigh; "I do not think that means what you think it means."

Eustace then opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it for what was probably the first time in his whole life, and shut it again.

The room was really not even _nearly_ as bad as Eustace made it out to be. It was an old room (naturally, as the building itself was old) and the faded egg-yolk yellow paint on the walls was beginning to crack, showing that they were going to need a touch-up soon, but aside from that, it was rather nice in a simple, small kind of way.

There was only one window, but it was wide and it let in a great deal of sunlight; and the sill was broad enough to support at least five candlesticks at one time. The hammocks weren't any less comfortable than average beds, made of a strong cotton-and-silk blend, and there were neatly folded cotton sheets and thick woolen comforters with real silver and copper thread sewn into their rich patterns and designs; the only real difference being that they were less firm than mattresses would have been and they swung a lot, and that might take more getting used to for some than for others. The floor was all polished hardwood except for a single braided rug under the window. There were three oil lamps on three desks, one for each of them, so studying would be easy enough as long as they understood whatever material they were dealing with.

There was a knock at the door and Caspian, off-handedly, called, "Come in."

The door swung open and a tall, bald-headed man, Telmarine like Caspian, only several years older, entered.

"This is Drinian," Caspian introduced them without getting up from his hammock. "He is in charge of the boys' dormitory, same as Mrs. Macready is in charge of the girls'."

"Finally!" Eustace rushed over to him. "Look here, there must be some mistake. No beds? Surely you understand I can't be expected to sleep hanging like some kind of animal all night and then attend lessons in the morning; it's just not going to work, you know."

Drinian blinked apathetically. "I beg your pardon?"

The conversation, terse and full of empty threats on one side and blandly indifferent on the other, went on for a while, but Edmund tuned them out, letting his mind wander up till the moment when he saw Caspian on his feet again, heading for the door, Eustace right behind him.

"Oh, you'll come, will you?" Caspian turned half-way around and raised an eyebrow at Eustace.

"Anything to get out of this blasted room."

"Blasted?" Drinian frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I just told you…" And he would have started the argument up again, if Caspian hadn't spoken over him to ask Edmund if he was coming along or not.

"Where are you going?" he asked them.

"Down to the dinning hall," said Caspian. "Aren't you hungry?"

"Sure." He nodded. "You go ahead, I'll meet you down there."

"But how will you know where it is?"

Edmund shrugged his shoulders. "I'll manage." The school was big, sure, but Cair Paravel was bigger; if he could live seven years there without starving because he couldn't find where everybody ate, he should be just fine here. Besides, there was something he had to do in the room first, and he didn't want them to see him do it.

"Suit yourself," Caspian gave in. "Eustace, by the Lion's mane, you can stop that over-dramatic sighing already, and you had better quit dragging your feet, because if you fall behind in a corridor you don't know, I will not bother my head about you."

Once they were long out of sight, Edmund reached for his carpet bag. Looking both ways to be sure no one was coming up behind him, he pulled out the stone knife, the silver locket, and the handkerchief Lucy had loaned him in the carriage. Quickly, he bound the locket up inside of the handkerchief and searched for something to secure it with. There was a loose thread dangling from the shift under his doublet; opening his truck, he took out a pocket knife (the stone knife wouldn't have been good for that sort of common use) and cut it off, using the thread to tie the handkerchief shut around the locket.

Now where should he hide the knife and handkerchief? He wasn't sure. The inside of his pillowcase was the obvious choice, but that was exactly why he was hesitant; it was obvious. Caspian probably wouldn't poke through his things, but Eustace might, not because he would be bright enough to suspect what Edmund had hidden among his few belongings but probably just looking for loose coins or sweets he could swipe.

There were always the floorboards, which was what had sufficed so well back at Cair Paravel; the old trick might work just as well here as it did there.

He felt around for a loose board and, finding none, resorted to carefully cutting one out directly under his hammock. Cautiously, he put the only two material things he truly valued in the open space, replaced the board, brushed the dirt away both from the hiding place and from his tights, and left the dorm.

The corridor shadows had changed in the time it had taken him dig out the floorboard (and then to replace it). Edmund knew he was dreadfully late for supper, and hoped to make it to the dinning hall before it was completely over.

Lucy, meanwhile, had been having a very different kind of introduction to her new living quarters than her best friend.

When the other pupils were grouped off and told to go this way or that, Lucy was taken personally by Lilliandil to Headmaster Coriakin's office. There she was given some peppermint tea in a brown teacup with a blue base and a golden rim while she and Lilliandil waited for Coriakin to come in.

He came followed by an odd-looking dwarf of a chap with a frizzy beard and only one giant foot instead of two normal-sized ones. Lilliandil whispered to Lucy that the creature was called a Dufflepud, was said to be the only one of his kind currently in existence, and was something of a highly inept manservant to her father.

Never-minding several rather stupid comments made by the Dufflepud (as they were also quite impossible to argue with since none of them were really regarding anything a person could have an actual opinion about), Coriakin kissed the back of Lucy's hand in greeting and rolled out an enormous map onto the floor.

As she stared at the map, Lucy found that the drawings of the places depicted seemed to come to life; they were as true and solid as the real places, only much smaller. What amazed her the most, however, was the wide border, which had nothing to do with any of the places but, instead, was all made up of pictures that might have come straight out of her _Myths and Legends of the Golden Age_ book.

"That map is of our corner of the Lantern Waste," Coriakin explained, glancing from the map to the princess, as if waiting to see her reaction. "That building in the middle, that's the school." He waved his hand at it and it came more into focus; it was as if Lucy had been looking through the wrong end of a telescope and now she was using the instrument properly. "All who come here to learn are given a smaller-more, erm, _conventional_ -map of the inside of the school, and there is already one waiting for you in your room, so I won't bother with that; but, here, you can look at the outer grounds and the places closest to us."

Whatever Lucy stared at, Coriakin would, in turn, gesture at with his hand so that it came into focus and whatever she was looking at previously slid out of it.

When she had seen what she supposed was everything, and was almost satisfied, just not quite, she asked, "The Lamppost?"

"Ah." Coriakin smiled at her. "Not far from here, but not close enough to appear on this map."

"Aye," interjected the Dufflepud, "when things aren't close, well, they're far away." He stared at the Narnian princess for a few moments, as if he expected her to agree with him. Then, when she said nothing, he added, in agreement with himself, "Yes, I am right. I should keep it up."

"I would much rather you didn't," said Lilliandil; but the statement went right over the Dufflepud's head, leaving no impact whatsoever.

Swallowing a giggle, Lucy shifted her gaze back down to the border of the map. As she wordlessly admired the beautiful portraits of King Peter and Queen Susan sitting on their thrones (the picture that was closest to where she stood), something remarkable happened.

When the map had come to life the border had remained unchanged, as it was supposed to, since it was only an ordinary pattern, however beautifully portrayed it was. Only, Lucy thought, just then, that King Peter had turned his head, looked straight at her, and nodded.

She let out a gasp and took a few steps back, looking to Headmaster Coriakin for an explanation.

But he couldn't explain it; he couldn't explain it because he hadn't seen it; and Lilliandil hadn't seen anything, either.

"What is it? What's amiss?" both stars asked her, noticing the stricken look on her face.

"Can't you see?" Lucy whispered, her voice feeling caught up in her throat. "He nodded at me." She half-grinned slowly and unsurely at Coriakin. "Did you make it do that?"

"Do what?" The headmaster was genuinely perplexed.

"Lilliandil?" the princess tried.

"I don't know what you mean," said the star's daughter gently.

"But…it…I mean, he…looked straight at me and nodded," she murmured faintly, pointing back at the border. "He wanted me to do something, I think."

"Who did, child?" Coriakin saw that she was very white in the face and, fearing that she would faint, walked over the map to her side of the office and put a steadying hand on one of her shoulders.

"High King Peter." The name came out of Lucy's mouth before she had time to realize how silly it sounded.

"Have you got a fever or a headache?" Lilliandil asked, concerned. "Do you want to lie down?"

Some colour returned to Lucy's face and Coriakin took his hand off of her, as convinced as he could possibly be for the moment that the princess was going to be all right.

"This office is dark, and it can play tricks on the eyes," the headmaster declared. "Do let's all go out into the corridor."

"Yes," Lilliandil agreed. "We can show the princess to her room."

"I'm not crazy," Lucy said, peering earnestly into each of their faces as they nudged her out of the two double doors back into the corridor.

The stars said nothing; and the Dufflepud only smiled dementedly at her and whistled, "Well, when one's not mad, they're sane, that's what."

One of the corridors they had to pass through in order to get to the wing where Lucy's room-a round chamber branching off from the girls' dormitory-was located was decorated with hollow-eyed masks and four or five funny looking-glasses with fake wooden beards carved out at the bottom.

As they traveled by the bearded looking-glass closest to the short Dufflepud's eye-level, the creature's expression became first cross, then dismayed. He seemed to be whispering angrily to his reflection, touching his _real_ beard continually to feel if it had been turned to wood.

Coriakin was getting out of range and the Dufflepud called after him, pointing crossly to the looking-glass. " _He's_ not coming along with us all the way to the princess's room, is he? Because I don't want him to!"

A laugh erupted from Lucy before she could stop it. Coriakin's shoulders shook, but he quickly regained control of himself. Even Lilliandil had to force back a faint smirk of amusement at this particular display of the Dufflepud's stupidity.

Eventually they made it to the room, and as Lilliandil knew far more about making sure a young lady's living quarters were comfortable than her father or his Dufflepud did, the princess and the star's daughter were left in alone in the doorway.

"There's a basin over there, for washing your face; it's cold, but if you'd prefer it warm, you can heat it over the fireplace…there's a hook you can slip the metal handle onto so it doesn't fall. I wouldn't leave it on for more than four or five minutes at time if you do that though. It gets scalding pretty quickly if you forget about it," Lilliandil informed her. "The sheets on the bed are clean. When you need them changed, you can leave them in the basket by the door for Mrs. Macready to pick up; she checks all the girls' baskets pretty regularly. Is there anything else you need to know?"

"No," said Lucy, "I've got everything, I think."

"Then I'll leave you to get ready for supper." Lilliandil stepped back out into the corridor, took one last look around the room to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything important, and then closed the door behind her.

Lucy followed and poked her head out. "Wait, when is it?"

Lilliandil blushed apologetically. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you knew. It's in one hour, and it's served in the dinning hall. Mrs. Macready will come and check on you about fifteen minutes prior and she can show you where you can meet up with the other girls. And then you can simply follow them. Or, if you're good with directions, you can try to find it using your map."

"Thank you," said Lucy, going back into her room, wishing Edmund were with her. Edmund knew directions and maps; she was going to have to stick by that dour-faced Macready-lady or else risk getting herself lost. Funny to think that Cair Paravel was bigger than this school and she'd rarely ever gotten lost back home.

Homesickness was threatening to wash over her like a wave at high tide on the Eastern Sea, so she treaded water by forcing thoughts of Cair out of her mind for the time being and studying her new chamber with more intensity.

It was big but not overtly so since the October-red walls were circular, which gave it an almost snug appearance from some angles. The bed was full-sized and stuffed with goose-feathers (not from _talking_ geese, of course) and heather; it had silken sheets and a velvet comforter folded at the bottom, and two puffy pillows with crisp white linen cases placed on top. The copper-and-brick fireplace was middle-sized, big enough for small logs but petite enough to still be of use if all she wanted was a fire of pinecones. There was a gold-tipped miniature glass Lion and two porcelain unicorn paperweights on the mantelpiece. The carpet by the hearth was mostly black, with patterns of holly berry red and royal blue mixed in; it had probably been very grand a few decades ago, but it was starting to get a bit old and worn now, useful and pretty though it still was. There was one slim crack in the ceiling that came partway down the side of the wall it was on, ending near where a cherry-wood study desk and chair were set up.

"I think I will be happy here," Lucy said to herself, hugging her knees to her chest. She would find happiness at this school, in this building, in this room, or, at least, she hoped she would.

Not wanting to be late for supper, she washed her face hastily, not bothering to heat up the water because she couldn't remember how long Lilliandil had recommended keeping it over the fire and didn't really mind it cold at any rate, and reached for the clothes Edmund had managed to pass to her before she'd had to go to Headmaster Coriakin's office and he'd had go with the other boys to his dorm.

There was a white shift and a dark purple-nearly black-vest matched with a pair of light brown breeches. She dressed herself and made a few adjustments because of the clothes being too big for her, thankful Edmund had loaned her a belt as well so that she didn't have to walk into the dinning hall holding the breeches up.

There was no conversation to be had with Mrs. Macready, for the housekeeper was not accustomed to being friendly to her students-not even when they were royalty-and had nothing to say except borderline scoldings and warnings against bad behavior. Lucy felt almost deliriously happy with relief when she saw the other girls, Marjorie Preston and the girl in the evergreen cape among them, heading down a flight of stairs.

The princess hastily flew from Mrs. Macready's side and found herself linking arms with Marjorie as if they had been friends all their lives.

"Oh, you don't know how glad I am to see you, Lucy!" Marjorie breathed to her as they approached the dinning hall doors. "It's been simply brutal. You couldn't imagine! None of the other girls likes me at all. Well, to be fair, Jill Pole does, and she's been a real brick; she even offered to loan me a splendid swan-feather quill pen. But no one else has said more than three words to me. Two of the second-year girls just shoved me out of the way without any warning, wouldn't even ask my pardon. If it weren't for you and Jill, I'd know by now that I'm to be truly miserable at this school."

"Jill Pole?" Lucy repeated. "Who's that?"

"Oh, that's her, walking at our left." She motioned at the girl in the evergreen cape.

Lucy waved to the Pole girl and she retuned the gesture, pressing closer to them. "So _you're_ Lucy Pevensie the princess! Marjorie was telling me all about you."

"Likewise," replied Lucy, smiling in a friendly manner.

"It's good to have friends here," Jill sighed, sounding as relieved as Marjorie did despairing.

"I wish Anne Featherstone would take some notice of us," Marjorie whined, pursing her lips. "Do you know what, Lucy? Pole and I have her for a roommate since her other ones have graduated and moved out, and she has the prettiest things you ever saw. Of course she won't share with us, she snubbed us when we asked who's bed was who's and told us hers was the one near the window and to not make too much noise fighting over the other two because she was trying to fix her hair and our 'chatter' was distracting her!"

"I don't care if she isn't friendly," Jill said cheerfully. "I didn't want to be her friend anyhow. She seems like a horrid tyrant."

"Do you really think that?" Marjorie's eyes widened. "I don't. I think she'd be splendid to people she liked, only she doesn't like us, and that's that. But did you see her gold brooch and diamond hairpin? Weren't they lovely?"

"My grandmother has a diamond hairpin," Jill told her. "My grandfather got it all the way from the Lone Islands."

"My mother has some jewelry from the Lone Islands," Lucy said, forgetting that, as they both knew her mother was Queen Helen, they probably would have assumed as much already.

"I heard Anne telling another girl she's getting a ball-gown from the Lone Islands," Marjorie groaned. "I bet it's beautiful. I sure wish I had money enough to have something nice from far away sent to me like that."

"Oh, hush up about Anne already!" snorted Jill, getting out of the way of a very large-set girl about to push her aside so she could get into the dinning hall first. "I'm tired of hearing about her clothes; we heard plenty about them when she was telling all her friends. I want to talk about something else now."

Marjorie appeared as if she wanted to speak of nothing _but_ Anne's clothes still, but, wanting to keep the peace with her new friend, agreed to talk about other things ranging from their homes to their first impressions of the school as a whole. Lucy thought the school was lovely and that the Headmaster and his daughter were very kind. Marjorie thought the place smelled a bit of mold but was fine otherwise. Jill said she didn't smell any mold, but thought some of the masks and paintings in the corridors were creepy, and confessed, sheepishly, that she would hate going passed them by herself at night.

The dinning hall had an extremely high ceiling painted and carved with angel designs; mostly round cherubs with tiny, almost dragonfly-like, wings. There were too many long wooden tables lined with dark-stained chairs to count. Most of the walls, which were rectangular, were hung with mirrors nearly from top to bottom.

Boys and girls evidently had the same meal times at this school, as was apparently by the fact that many of their future male classmates were already there. One group of boys were making their spoons into mini catapults and trying to use them to fling crumbled cloth napkins at the table where Anne Featherstone and her friends were sitting down, only they kept missing because their aim was horrible. Another were pretending their butter-knives were broadswords and using their tin food trays for shields.

Eustace was there, too, trying to write a letter to his mother expressing his outrage at being cruelly dropped off at such a vile place, but then one of Caspian's friends snatched the letter from him and gave it to the boys with the catapult spoons.

"Is he here?" Jill asked Marjorie.

"I don't see him," she said.

"See who?" Lucy wanted to know.

"The boy she fancies," Jill explained shortly. "She was telling me about him in the dorm room."

"She knows who he is, Jill, they're both from Cair Paravel."

"Oh." Jill shrugged her shoulders. "Well, no one told me that."

Suddenly it dawned on Lucy that Marjorie and Jill were referring to Edmund, and she, too, began to wonder where he was.

"Look, Lucy!" Jill grasped her arm. "There's an open table."

"It's not open, there's some froggy-fellow sitting there," Marjorie protested.

"Yes, but he's by himself."

"He's got webbed hands!"

"It's a Marsh-wiggle," Lucy said; she hadn't seen very many of them in person before, but she knew plenty about them from books. "They're harmless. I wonder why he's here, though."

"Let's go find out, then," Jill said, repressing the urge to stamp her foot. "They will be serving food soon, and I don't want to be standing up when it's time to eat."

"But he's got such goggle-eyes," Marjorie hissed. "I don't like them."

"Well, he didn't choose them," Jill snapped. "Let's just sit down already!"

"Come on, Marjorie," Lucy said kindly. "I'm sure he's fine. Marsh-wiggles are Narnians just like me or Ed or Headmaster Coriakin's daughter. Really, they're quite normal. I bet if you had them in Archenland and got used to them, you wouldn't mind this one now."

So they took a seat next to the Marsh-wiggle and Jill asked his name to be polite.

"It's Puddleglum," he said solemnly, keeping his eyes low, "but it's all right if you forget it; I can always tell you what is again."

Marjorie noticed the Marsh-wiggle wasn't young like they were; by human-standards he was probably as middle-aged as her father was. "Aren't you a little old to be going to school here?"

"Yes," he said, a serious frown creasing his face. "Yes, of course I am. But the other Marsh-wiggles say I don't take life seriously enough; so I've come back to school. Never met anyone who didn't have a sad school-story, so I thought enrolling here was just the thing to sober me up."

Lucy grinned at that ironic statement, thinking she'd never met anyone so serious in her life and that he needed cheering more than sobering. Jill agreed with her, only Puddlegulm seemed so contented being somber that she supposed making him happy wouldn't please him very much. Marjorie soon got used to his steady presence and even began to like the Marsh-wiggle, but her eyes kept drifting to Anne Featherstone's table longingly all the same.

Speaking of Anne, right after the meal was over, she and her friends were the first to make their exit. On their way out they walked passed Lucy and made fun of her wearing boys' clothes, deliberately speaking loudly enough so that she could hear every nasty word of it.

Lucy only scowled; she liked the clothes, they belonged to her best friend (who still hadn't shown). Jill's expression looked like she was ready to punch one of the girls out. Marjorie simply lowered her head, embarrassed, as if it was _her_ that was getting made fun of instead of Lucy.

"Ah," said Puddleglum to himself, nodding. "It's beginning. I knew this idea would work. Nothing happy about them lot."

"Come on," Lucy said, feeling worse for Marjorie who looked so sad than for herself. "Let's just go."

"Everyone's staring at us now," Marjorie whispered, trying not to cry. "I know Anne hates me-hates _us_ -but I was hoping that she wouldn't let everyone else know that."

"I don't know why they're all staring at us, really," grumped Jill, standing up. "There's no reason their lives all have to revolve around Anne Featherstone's stupid opinions."

"Maybe they think you look funny," Lucy joked.

"Oh, Lucy!" Marjorie cried reproachfully. "How can you joke about this? It's jolly nearly too awful for words."

"No, it's not." Lucy took her friend's hand. "You'll feel better once we're out in the corridor."

"All right, but do let's wait a few minutes so we don't run into Anne and her group."

"What difference does it make?" Jill huffed. "We're going to see her in our room in a little bit anyway."

"I know, I know."

Once they were out in the corridor, Marjorie did indeed start to feel better, but not for the reasons Lucy predicted. Marjorie's tears dried up instantly, and she hastily smoothed out her hair, when she saw Edmund coming towards them.

"Hey, Lu." He stopped when he noticed her, panting slightly. "Did I miss supper?"

Lucy looked both ways and took two bread-rolls and a piece of chicken wrapped in her cloth napkin out from behind her back, offering it to him.

"Thanks!" Edmund beamed at her gratefully, taking the napkin from her.

It was unusual that Edmund ended up in a place after Lucy did; but when she mentioned this, he simply said there was something he had had to take care of and he lost track of time while busy.

"Hi, Edmund," Marjorie said, wondering if he would remember her from earlier or not.

He paused for a moment, then it came to him. "Oh, Hello, Marjorie."

She blushed.

Jill rolled her eyes. She agreed with Marjorie that Lucy's friend was handsome, but she didn't see how his remembering a name from only a few hours ago was all that big a deal.

"Ed, this is Jill," Lucy introduced her.

"Nice to meet you."

"Same here, I've heard a lot about you."

"From Lucy?" Edmund yawned, breaking off a piece of one of the rolls to eat while he talked to them.

"No, from-" Jill began before Marjorie elbowed her. "Ouch!"

Edmund crinkled his brow. "Lucy, can we go for walk?" It wasn't that he didn't like Lucy's new friends, it was only that he didn't really know them and wasn't up to making continual small-talk with a bunch of strangers; he would much rather just walk around with someone he knew and understood until curfew.

Once they were alone, Jill turned to Marjorie and demanded to know what on earth she had jabbed her in the ribs for, and didn't she know that _hurt_?

"Sorry," Marjorie apologized, not having meant to hurt her. "I didn't mean to hit you so hard."

"It's all right." Jill forgave her.

"What do you want to do now?"

"Find a frog and put it in Anne Featherstone's bed," said Jill, truthfully.

Marjorie giggled. "No, seriously."

"I _was_ serious."

"What do you think they talk about?" Marjorie hastily changed the subject, afraid of being trapped between loyalty to her friends and her admiration of Anne.

"What who talks about?"

She motioned down the way Edmund and Lucy had gone.

"Oh." Jill's eyebrows went up. "The rise and fall of the ancient Archenland-style violin."

"Really?"

"No, of course not!" Jill laughed, shaking her head. "How should I know? I've only just met them!"


	5. Lucy is Given an Assignment

The room was pitch black and Edmund was almost asleep in his hammock; almost, but not quite. He thought he heard something moving in the room and propped his elbows up in the hammock ever so slightly, still keeping his eyes half-closed. Peeping through his lashes, he could see Caspian fumbling around for something long and black (which turned out to be a hooded cloak), and watched as he threw it over his shoulders and tried to make as swiftly and silently towards the door as possible.

Edmund thought he would have gotten on better if he had carried his boots in his hands until he got out into the corridor instead of wearing them straight off and creaking through the whole room. That was certainly what _he_ would have done in Caspian's place, at any rate.

This was none of his business, so he wouldn't ask, and he hoped that when the situation was reversed (as it was bound to be whenever he decided to visit Lucy at ungodly hours), his roommate would be good enough to show him the same courtesy in return.

All the same, he wondered where a valedictorian would go off to in the middle of the night, seeing as he had lessons in the morning and everything. Edmund _did_ think up a few different scenarios that might drive Caspian to sneak out, but, by process of logical elimination, quickly dismissed them all as nonsense. Well, it didn't matter. He didn't really care. 'Don't ask, don't tell' was the perfect policy as far as he was concerned.

In his sleep, Eustace loudly asked someone in his dreams, "I got so much. How much did you get? On the arithmetic test, of course. I bet I got higher marks than you did."

The sudden voice startled Caspian and he spun round in such a hurry that he knocked a stack of books off a desk by mistake; and the heavy tomes fell to the floor with a great _thump_.

The noise went through Edmund like nails on a chalk-board, and though he would have fought against doing so if he'd had time to consider what he was doing before the involuntary impulse came over him, his eyes instantly snapped open all the way, and he sat up, straight as possible, in the hammock.

Caspian stood and stared back at him, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly agape. Obviously he didn't know what to say to his roommate.

A moment of awkward silence passed, broken by nothing other than the faint chiming of a grandfather clock two or three corridors away, before both boys' eyes flickered over to Eustace's hammock, wondering if the noise had woken him.

But, no, Eustace was snoring and murmuring things by turn, still rambling on about imaginary tests and how well he was doing on them.

That was a relief, Caspian thought; but what to say to Edmund? Confound the fellow! If only he'd go back to sleep, too!

Edmund shook his head at Caspian, lowered himself back into his hammock, then proceeded to roll over and pull a comforter over his head, hoping his roommate got the hint that he wasn't going to bother about him and that he was free to go and do whatever it was he was up to.

Caspian hesitated. Could he trust this boy? Or would he follow him the second his back was turned? Edmund wasn't like Eustace; he was far more clever. Thing was, he hadn't yet decided if that was a good thing or a bad one. Earlier, he would have thought it was definitely a good thing, making for bearable company at least. Now, though? When there was the chance he would be found out? His old roommates, both plenty smart enough now that he thought about it, had never discovered his great secret. Then, he hadn't done this very often. Only for very serious emergency meetings. This was desperately important, so he knew he couldn't miss tonight, but he was strangely frightened of his roommate.

Pull yourself together, he thought sternly, silently reprimanding himself, at once! He's giving you a chance to get away. If he does follow you, you are bound to see-or at least _hear_ -him at some point. And it isn't as if he could follow me all the way anyhow; he will be shut out. I'm being paranoid. I must go now, at once, before the time is lost.

"You're welcome," Edmund mumbled from under the comforter.

"Thanks," he whispered under his breath, not sure if Edmund could hear him, nor if it really mattered whether or not he could anyway.

Fifteen minutes later, there was knock at Headmaster Coriakin's office, answered by Lilliandil.

A hooded figure stood in the doorway.

Lilliandil took a dignified but slightly nervous step forward. "Yes?"

"It's all right, Lilli," Caspian said softly, pulling back the hood just enough to reveal his face. "It's only me."

She smiled, reassured.

Lilliandil, he'd begun to notice, had one smile she used on pretty much everybody else, while possessing a completely different one for him-a much slower, strangely endearing one.

"Come in," she said, holding one of the double doors open for him. "Everyone has been waiting to start. I was beginning to think you weren't going to make it."

"After the note Professor Kirke passed me on my way out of the dinning hall, I didn't see how I could possibly miss this one." He entered the office, letting his eyes take in what could be seen; which wasn't all that much.

It was even darker in the headmaster's office now than it had been earlier during Lucy's visit, the only light coming from a small oil lantern on the desk at the far end.

Coriakin, Digory Kirke, Drinian, a dark-haired woman named Ivy dressed in wine-coloured velvet and wearing a wire-thin gold band around her forehead, a red-bearded dwarf and a black-bearded dwarf who were called Nikabrik and Trumpkin, a half-dwarf known as Doctor Cornelius, and three other men (Telmarines like Caspian) named Rhince, Glozelle, and Rynelf sat in cushioned chairs lined against the wall behind the desk, waiting. There was also Rhince's quiet-natured wife, Elaine, who was nearly always present for these meetings but rarely ever said anything during them, sitting at her husband's side, squeezing his hand gently from time to time.

"Caspian is here," Lilliandil informed them all.

"Oh, good," said a sarcastic, highly insincere voice that-even in the dark-Caspian knew belonged to Nikabrik. "So relieved. Can we get on with this already?"

"Glad you could make it," said Rynelf, making up for Nikabrik's rudeness.

There was something wonderfully comforting about being with this group that made Caspian feel relaxed and safe whenever they all met together. He knew and loved everyone gathered in this office (yes, even Nikabrik) and would have entrusted his life into any of their hands without a second thought. They'd been meeting together for several years now, even before he was officially enrolled in Coriakin's school, and he hoped that they would still be friends (and as far as the beautiful Lilliandil went, possibly more than friends), long after they finally accomplished their unanimous goal. For, truly, he could not imagine another band of persons who understood him and his life's story so well as these did.

And he, in turn, knew all _their_ secrets, too. Ivy, for example, pretended to be a maid at the school, working under Mrs. Macready the housekeeper and alongside another maid named Margaret, but she was actually the daughter of the river god who lived near the fords of Beruna, and thus had endless days like a goddess herself. Only in meetings like this did the river god's daughter dress according to her station. And it was actually she and Professor Kirke, with a little help from Coriakin, who had first brought this group together. Another example was Glozelle, a good man, but a fraud to some extent; he often posed as a lord when, really, he was only an army general who had left Telmar after getting a rather nasty arm-wound in battle.

"Professor," Caspian said, looking to Digory, "that note you had slipped to me…is it true, has he really returned?"

"We believe this may be the real thing, at last," answered Professor Kirke. "It is too early to tell for sure, of course. But I must confess, I have my suspicions. Some of the signs are there; and Coriakin has told me something else that happened earlier today which would incline me to follow my instincts for this one."

"We will not talk of these things here," Coriakin hastily interrupted. He rose from his chair and tapped a certain dent in the wall until it fell back, revealing a secret door. "We must keep this secret."

"Surely no one suspects what we…" Caspian began, then stopped, finding himself thinking-strangely enough-of Edmund Pevensie for some reason.

"Then perhaps we should keep it that way for as long as possible," said Lilliandil in a meek voice.

Soon everyone had gone through the door and down the flight of old stone steps that followed it, all except for Caspian and Lilliandil, who often were the last to travel down to the hidden chamber where the bulk of these meetings were held.

"Lilli," whispered Caspian in her ear shortly, "I hope you and I can still meet at these kinds of odd hours sometime when things are different."

She didn't reply but, instead, gave him that special smile that was his and his alone for an answer.

The following morning, Lucy awoke for the first time in her new room. She had passed an agreeable night, but it wouldn't be quite true to say she didn't, at least once or twice, wish she was back in her bed at Cair Paravel. It was a little sad to think that she wouldn't be greeted by her familiar chambermaids with a friendly knock at the door, as she had grown so used to. No, instead, she had to dress quickly, in more clothes borrowed from Edmund (a white tunic over a crimson shift and black tights), comb her hair, gather up her books, and head down to her first lesson.

The one thing that reassured her, and even made her sort of excited to get the day going, was that she wasn't going to be all on her own. During their walk the evening before, she and Edmund had compared the schedules that had been left in their rooms for them to memorize, only to find they had several of the same classes, despite their slight different in age. Her first lesson was history with Professor Kirke, and Lucy knew for sure that Edmund would be there, too. In a way, since they would be together, it would be just like learning at Cair Paravel; there was no loss to mourn as far as that was concerned.

Even more contented was Lucy when, upon finding the room where history lessons would be held (on time, because she met up with Edmund in the corridor and he showed her the way so that she didn't get herself lost), she discovered that not only was her best friend in her history class, but also her other new chums, Marjorie and Jill, as well.

The small oaken tables in the history room were meant to seat only two persons each; and that worked out well because Marjorie and Jill were already sitting together, having gotten there earlier, so Lucy and Edmund took an empty table only a row or so down from theirs and sat together, too.

Eustace was sitting at a table by himself (no one wanted to sit with him) in the front row, a quill and a stack of paper already out in front of him to take notes with.

Lucy, when she noticed him, couldn't help feeling a little bad that he was all by himself, a monster cut off from the rest of his peers. But that didn't mean she was particularly happy to see him there. It wasn't even nearly as bad as if any of Anne Featherstone's friends had been in the class, and Eustace was at times more entertaining in his snobbishness and ignorance than he was truly horrid or vindictive; yet, all the same, he was still a nuisance, and no one who liked to do their work in peace could be all that thrilled to find they had classes in common with him.

What Lucy hadn't noticed, in the midst of settling down contentedly into her place and taking out her quill pen and necessary study-books, was that she and Edmund were the only boy and girl sitting together. Everybody else seemed to have chosen to sit next to a chum of the same sex as they themselves were.

It had never occurred to Marjorie, who's parents were very strict about such matters, to even _consider_ sitting with a boy in class; and she couldn't help feeling a little regretful that she'd been so frightened of being left standing when class began, getting herself seated with a girl she didn't like by default, and so had joined Jill straight off. She thought maybe if she had waited a little longer, it might have been _her_ sitting with Edmund instead of Lucy. Then again, perhaps it was better this way; she could still see and admire him from where she was, and it might be hard to concentrate on the history lessons themselves if the object of her affections was seated any closer to her. Edmund Pevensie was more even distracting than Anne Featherstone's closet (which was technically supposed to be hers and Jill's as well but had already been taken over _long_ before they moved in) being left wide open to reveal all her pretty dresses and hats and scarves and boots and things.

Professor Kirke, studying some kind of old, very detailed chart at the front of the room, waited until everyone was seated and looking at him expectantly. Even the most talkative students appeared to wonder why he was ignoring them and stared at their professor in dead-silence, ceasing their conversations for the time being.

"Ah," said the professor, knowing just the right moment to look up at everyone, "there you are. All ready to start today's lesson, then?"

Lucy fought back a giggle, realizing how he had confused the other pupils into being quiet before he began.

The professor noticed Lucy's particular attention to his odd method, winked at her, and mouthed, "Works every time."

"So, this term," Professor Kirke went on, walking back and forth in the room while he spoke, trying to make eye-contact with as many of them as possible, "we will actually be studying some very ancient legends and so-called myths that make up much of old Narnia's history."

Eustace scrambled to write that down, thinking it might turn up on an exam sometime soon (well, you never really _knew_ ; it was always best to be prepared!).

"You can all put away the original text books that were left in your rooms, by the way," the professor informed them. "That was a mistake. We'll be learning about the contents of those books sometime starting next term. This term, I have something else for you." He went over to a small closet at the back of the room and pulled out a heavy stack of well-used tomes with worn-looking covers; at least eight of the books had loose pieces of string or thread dangling from the binding.

A boy in the back row flipped open one of the other text books, forgetting that he was going to need it during the following term, and started ripping pages out before the professor warned him that the cost of any books he ruined would be added to the tuition fees his parents were already paying. That knowledge seemed to sober him up a bit. He tucked the book neatly under his table and smiled with faux-innocence.

Professor Kirke placed the book they would be using down on Edmund and Lucy's table first.

Lucy recognized it at once and gasped excitedly: _Myths and Legends of the Golden Age_! It was exactly like the one she had brought with her from Cair Paravel, though a decisively less grand edition, without the copper binding, having been ordered in bulk by the school several years prior.

"You have got to be joking," Edmund groaned to himself; not _that_ book again! He liked it well enough when Lucy read it aloud to him, or when they looked through it together, but to have study it and tear it apart piece by piece? He couldn't think of anything he would enjoy _less_ than that. Why couldn't they study something normal? What about battles that history actually _proved_ took place? Or the history of Narnian-style armour? Writing a composition largely on blacksmiths of old and their methods wouldn't be fun, probably, but it _would_ have some purpose.

Disappointed, Edmund grimaced at the back of the professor's head as he put a book down on Jill and Marjorie's table.

"Professor!" Eustace cried. "Edmund's making faces at you!"

Professor Kirke turned around, and in the moment when his eyes were directly between both boys, not focused on either one for a split second, Eustace shot a spitball right at Edmund's neck.

"Why, you little-" Edmund began angrily, and would have continued if Lucy had not chosen that exact moment to grip his elbow and whisper, "Let it go, Ed." Furthermore, Professor Kirke's eyes were on him now; Eustace had chosen his moment with care, too much of a mark-grubber to take foolish risks.

"Is there a problem?" the professor asked, seeing that Edmund's facial expression was still peevish.

"No, Sir," he mumbled to the wood of the table. Professor Kirke still seemed the most understanding out of anyone he'd met at this school as of yet, but he could tell the man's patience was wearing a bit thin and that he wanted to get back to the lesson without any further interruptions.

Eustace had been flipping through _Myths and Legends of the Golden Age_ with a rather disgusted look on his face since right after he'd fired the spitball and hid the evidence. Of course the idea of reading a book like that during his spare time was completely foreign to him, and now that he saw what it was like, he thought this must be some sort of first lesson prank. Professor Kirke couldn't seriously expect them to read _fairy-tales_ during his class, could he? There had to be some mistake.

"I will expect each of you to write a composition based on a person, place, or event that played a significant roll in these ancient tales. You may work alone or with a partner on this. There are several different topics you can pick from, but I will not make allowances for anyone who deliberately decides on a narrow subject in hopes of getting less work." The professor walked to the front of the room, opened a tobacco holder shaped very like the silver apple from the legend Lucy had read on the carriage ride, and filled a pipe. "Yes, Scrubb?"

Eustace had his hand up. "Does Headmaster Coriakin know you smoke in class while teaching _fairy stories_?"

"Yes," said Professor Kirke briskly. "Any other questions before I finish explaining the assignment? No? Anyone? Good, let's continue, shall we?" He puffed thoughtfully on his pipe for a second, then picked up a piece of paper with something written on it. "Here I have a topic outlined. This is an example of how I would like you all to begin." Pretend-nonchalantly, the professor placed the paper down in front of Lucy. "You can have this one, Your Highness, as I suspect you, being royalty, will be rather an example to the rest of the class yourself. Everyone else many pick freely, just bear in mind that I still hold the right to change your topic as I see fit if something is unsatisfactory."

Curious, Lucy looked down at the paper. _The fall of High King Peter: events leading up to…persons that led up to…beliefs that led up to…actions leading up to…and personal conclusions._ Her stomach churned uncomfortably. She hadn't anticipated getting stuck writing a composition on the one thing she'd always hated about those old stories. No one knew for sure exactly what brought about the end of the Golden Age in Narnia, but there were several theories; many of them similar, none of them pleasant.

"When studying, Your Highness, I want you to pay close attention to situations, ones that may have seemed harmless at the time, which in any way could have possibly assisted the downfall of Narnia's greatest king. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the matter."

After History was finished for the day, Marjorie walked over to Lucy and Edmund's table.

"Rough luck, Lucy, getting such a difficult topic," she said, trying to be sympathetic.

"It isn't that it's difficult, it's…" Lucy shook her head and her voice trailed off. She couldn't explain it: there had simply never been a time when those particular tales had sat well with her.

"Edmund, I was wondering, do you want a partner for the assignment?" Marjorie mustered up the courage to ask.

"I wanted to work with Lucy on it," he told her flat out. "Like you said, she has a difficult topic."

"Oh, all right," she said, looking down at her feet, clearly disappointed. "Maybe another time, then."

"Yeah, maybe," Edmund agreed, absently.

"Really?" She perked up a bit at that.

He furrowed his brows and shrugged his shoulders. "I guess so." Actually, if he couldn't work with Lucy for some reason or other, he usually preferred to work alone as a general rule, but he hadn't wanted to be rude. "Um, I don't think Jill has a partner yet. Why don't you ask her if she wants one, so you don't have to work alone?"

"Thanks, I think I will," said Marjorie, beaming at him.

"Good." Edmund nodded.

"Good," she repeated.

"See you around," he said, picking up his books and leaving the room with Lucy.

Professor Kirke watched the two of them go, hoping the princess would take her assignment seriously and learn something from it; especially if his suspicions should prove true.


	6. In Which Edmund Has a Very Long Night

_The sun was setting on more than just the day; it was setting, also, on an era, an age._ _Golden was becoming red._

_Things might improve someday, and, indeed, High King Peter believed they would. But his rein was over; there was no escaping that heartbreaking fact._

_The high king stood, looking out at the waves on the sea, the fading sun warm on his back, his steed, a black horse he called Coalblack on his left, and the very last friend he had left on his right._

" _Master Tumnus," he said softly, looking over his right shoulder to his faun adviser and friend, young enough what seemed like only yesterday but aging rapidly today, stout with white and gray in his formally brown curly hair, "will you do something for me?"_

" _Anything, Your Majesty," he replied._

_Slowly, King Peter undid the strong tie that held his sword's scabbard to his belt._

_His sword was remarkable, said to have originally been created for a warrior queen long before his time. She had been called Swanwhite and was said to have been 'beautiful to the extreme'. Tradition held that this remarkable queen had christened the sword 'Rhindon'. It also held that no one, be they part of the nobility or the humblest of commoners, after Swanwhite's death had ever been able to draw the sword from its scabbard until Peter came along and did so. Thus, it had become his sword and his alone; it had been his destiny to kill the serpent-witch and save Narnia, and it had been his fate, in so doing, to inherit Rhindon._

" _Your sword, Your Grace?" There was fear in Tumnus's voice._

" _I want you to hide it away," King Peter ordered, handing Rhindon over, his fingers clinging round it ever so slightly, as if they were forcing themselves to loosen their desperate grip; "hide it where no one can find it."_

" _I…I will indeed hide it away until your return, Sire," he stammered, scraping one goat-hoof anxiously along the sand._

_The king's weary blue eyes wouldn't meet Tumnus's concerned ones all of a sudden; they were completely downcast._

" _My lord? What is it? You…you are coming back, are you not?"_

" _Narnia rots," whispered King Peter brokenly, "and I fear I'm too weak now to bring it back. And Susan…oh, Aslan, my queen, my beloved…My Susan…" His voice cracked and he needed to inhale deeply and wipe at his eyes before going on._

" _Are you saying Narnia will never see you again?" Tumnus braced himself for the worst, dreading the high king's answer._

" _I may never come back," he replied. "Unless Aslan comes to me and says I must; but, alas, I doubt that. My time is up. I can feel it in my bones and heart. I feel most dreadful, and yet, it isn't how I thought it would be. I'm torn to pieces, Master Tumnus, but it's all right; one day, Narnia will understand. I may never return, but, if Aslan wills it, I swear to you, Narnia shall see me again someday."_

" _How can that be?" asked Tumnus, speaking through the tears now streaming down his face. "You speak in contradictory statements, Sire. Has your suffering brought on madness?"_

" _If I am mad," King Peter said, closing his eyes, "what harm is it to you to let me be so? Only, keep your promise. And don't forget."_

" _Never," Tumnus swore._

_The king put a hand on his friend's shoulder and they stared at each other with lumps in their throats. The faun and the high king embraced._

" _Where will you go?"_

" _I would like to fling myself into the sea head-first and never surface," confessed the king, his tone deeply depressed. "But that is not what I think Aslan would expect of me, of Narnia's former high king. I shall go back to the location in Narnia where I first came in from that other place; that is where I will end my days."_

" _But, Your Majesty, you can barely remember anything about that other place! If you should manage to go back…if all ends well for you…what will you do there?"_

" _I don't know for sure," he told him honestly. "I was considering, if I do not die on the threshold, a career in medicine. I may not remember much about that other place, but something in the back of my mind tells me that world isn't kind to grown men who can't support themselves."_

" _Need you any help tacking your horse?" Tumnus did not know what else to ask, do, or say._

_He shook his head. "No, thank you. I will ride him bareback."_

" _You go west, then?"_

" _Aye, dear friend, west."_

" _Aslan's blessings and safe journey." The faun lightly slapped Coalblack's neck. "I do wish you would reconsider."_

" _Reconsider? Master Tumnus, I've been overthrown. Everything and everyone I have ever loved is gone." He mounted his horse and pressed his legs tightly around the creature's black to keep his balance. "I've grown older, you know that trying to reclaim my throne now would mean going to my own death. What's more, if I won, I told you, I haven't got the strength to bring Narnia back. Not now. I beg your forgiveness."_

" _Peter," said Tumnus, forgetting formalities for what would be their last moment together, "there is nothing to forgive."_

" _Really? Nothing at all?"_

" _What wrong have you done? I can think of none. You were the greatest king…and now…now perhaps I, too, once I've hidden your sword away, may leave Narnia to seek other lands. There will be no peace here for a long time."_

" _Be wary of spies, Tumnus, we are in sight of the formally glorious Cair Paravel still."_

" _I will, I promise."_

" _Then this is farewell." And with that, High King Peter rode off, due west, as fast as Coalblack would carry him._

_Never again was the greatest leader of Narnia in all of known history seen._ _Some say he made it to his destination, even claiming he met Aslan along the way and that they talked one last time, and that eventually Peter became a doctor in that other place; England. Others say he died in the Western Woods, either of being killed by a wild non-talking animal, or else simply of a broken heart. Some even think he died in the Lantern Waste not far from the lamppost; there is a statue of a kingly figure, believed to be a depiction of High King Peter, standing in those woods down to this day. As for Master Tumnus, he must have kept his promise, for Rhindon-like its former owner-was never found._

"Bit of a downer," Edmund commented as Lucy finished reading.

"That's putting it rather lightly," Lucy said, closing _Myths and Legends of the Golden Age_.

It was well-passed midnight, but neither the princess nor the count felt sleepy. They were sitting up in Lucy's room, seated on the carpet by hearth, a fire crackling in the grate of the fireplace; and up till a moment or so ago Lucy had been reading aloud.

Sneaking by Caspian and Eustace hadn't been hard for Edmund; both had been fast asleep. Now, the Macready, she had been tricky, as the dratted woman had ears like a hawk, but Edmund had never forgotten his old early childhood skill of making his breathing practically inaudible and so had managed to creep silently by the housekeeper when her back was turned.

Lucy's eyes flickered up to the miniature glass Lion. "Why do you think he let it happen?"

"Let what happen?" Edmund asked, shifting his weight off of his right leg which had fallen asleep and was all pins and needles.

She motioned down at the book still in her hands. "Let the Golden Age end. Why do you think Aslan didn't step in and stop it?"

"I don't know, Lu," said Edmund, sort of pensively, "maybe things in life aren't meant to stay perfect; maybe they aren't even meant to _be_ perfect to begin with and that's why whenever it is the balance has to shift back."

"I don't think I believe that," Lucy told him flatly. "I think Aslan wants us all to be happy."

"And does happiness merit perfection?" Edmund's eyebrows raised themselves pointedly.

"Depends on your idea of what perfection is, really," she decided.

"It's hard to argue with that," her friend agreed.

Lucy stared into the fire, which was much smaller than when they'd first sat down, and then glanced back at Edmund. "Ed?"

"Yes?"

"Don't you think it's strange that the legends don't tell us what happened to Queen Susan? I mean, obviously she died, she had to of, or else I think Peter would have spent the rest of his life looking for her if she was alive somewhere, only…none of the stories says how it happened."

"It's called a loose end, Lu, lots of old fairytales end like that. Old bards back in the olden days must have thought dreary open endings were poetic or romantic, or some such similar rot."

"It isn't open-ended if we know she's _dead_ ," Lucy pointed out, crinkling her forehead. "It doesn't make sense that Susan's so important early on and then her story just peters out and doesn't tell us the whats and whys. Ed, more than half of the legends claim she pulled off a terrible betrayal and that it was anywhere from partly her fault that the Golden Age came to an end to _all_ her fault. And yet, haven't you noticed there's no record of what she supposedly did?"

"I don't see how it matters," yawned Edmund, rolling his eyes. "She might not have even been a real person to begin with."

"That's what confuses me," said Lucy, who strongly disagreed with Edmund's belief that High King Peter's court probably hadn't been real. "If a story-teller made her up, they would have made up a fate for her. A clear ending, plain and simple. They would have made her black-and-white; either good or bad."

Edmund laughed. "By the Lion, Lu, you sound like a blasted lawyer! Anyway, King Peter's ending isn't all that clear itself. Why should his wife have it any different after bringing down a whole country?"

"I don't believe it was her fault old Narnia was destroyed."

"No?"

She shook her head vehemently. "Of course not. She loved her country, and her husband."

"Love doesn't make a person do everything right," said Edmund, a little bitterly. "Even criminals can have love."

"But not for the people they steal from or kill or whatever," she said firmly. "You don't betray the people that you love."

"If only things were always that simple," he couldn't help sighing.

"They are," insisted Lucy, "think about it. Would you betray my parents- _our_ parents?"

"Of course not!" The very idea repelled him.

"Would you ever betray _me_?"

He looked at Lucy, so sweet and innocent, looking small in the large shift she was borrowing for a nightgown. Edmund would have stabbed himself in the heart with the stone knife before he did anything that would bring true harm to her, his dear one; the best friend he had ever had.

"No, never!" He scooted a little closer to her.

"See?" Lucy smiled at him. "If it's that simple for you, why shouldn't it be like that for everybody?"

It was a beautiful notion, and it sounded impossibly sweet the way Lucy said it, so pure and utterly utopian, but, then, 'everybody' in the broadest sense of the term probably didn't love each other as much as Edmund did Lucy; nor did it seem likely that 'everybody' had as much respect and gratitude for each other as he did for King Frank and Queen Helen.

They sat for a bit longer in silence, Edmund thinking about Lucy, and Lucy still wondering about Peter and Susan. Then, Lucy noticed the fire was so low it was very nearly all embers. Of course the maids weren't going to come in at this hour and make it big again, so Lucy stood up and picked up the gold-plated poker, intending to over-turn the embers herself.

"Lucy," said Edmund, with surprising unease, as she stood up and went closer to the dying embers, "what are you doing?"

"Over-turning the embers."

"That's the servants' job," he said, his face a little pale for some reason. "We don't touch the fireplace. Neither of us ever have."

"It's easy," Lucy said cheerfully. "We both must have seen it done a hundred times. Aren't you starting to feel cold?"

"No," he lied.

"I say, Edmund, are you all right?" She turned around, her back to the fireplace, noticing that her friend looked as if he was going to be sick. "You look awful."

"Well what do you expect?" he snapped, furrowing his brow. "I mean, it's freezing!"

"You just said you weren't cold."

Oh, that was right, he had, hadn't he? Dash it. "Maybe I should get out of here, it's late. You can go to bed. The servants will take care of the fire in the morning."

"Why? I'm not sleepy. And you _do_ look ill, Edmund, but you don't look at all sleepy yourself, either."

"I…" He didn't know what to say to that.

She bent down close to the fire and over-turned the embers. All went quite well, except that a single spark shot up and landed on Edmund's right hand.

He hastily brushed it away, but not before a sudden involuntary scream came out of his mouth.

"Ed?" Lucy was at his side, grabbing onto one of his arms.

He took a deep breath. "I'm _fine_. Don't look at me like that." He pulled his arm out of her grasp.

"I've never heard you scream that loudly before," she told him. "What happened? You looked terrified."

"I thought…" he started, still looking a touch bewildered.

"What is it?"

His senses returned to him in earnest now, and he felt incredibly stupid. "I thought there was a wasp in the room," he invented quickly.

"A wasp?" Lucy repeated, confused.

"Well, you know how much I hate them." He grinned at her with forced playfulness.

Lucy would have questioned him further if Mrs. Macready hadn't, at that very moment, knocked on the door and demanded to know if all was well, having heard Edmund's scream and assuming that it was Lucy.

"No, I'm perfectly all right…" Lucy called, frightened that she would enter and discover Edmund there with her. "It…it was…just…"

"A bad dream," Edmund whispered urgently into Lucy's ear, knowing what a lousy liar she was. "Tell her it was just a nightmare and you're fine now."

"It was only a nightmare, all is well!"

"You sound uncertain," the Macready called back.

"I'm not! Really, I'm not."

"I'm coming in," she informed her.

On the one hand, Edmund was reasonably pleased to learn that if Lucy was ever being held hostage in her room, forced to say she was all right when she was not, Mrs. Macready would charge in there and rescue her, not taking no for an answer. On the other hand, however, as that seemed like an unlikely scenario, and they didn't want to get caught visiting at ungodly hours, that knowledge was not particularly comforting at this exact point in time.

"What do we do?" Lucy asked, beginning to feel a little panicked.

Edmund didn't answer. He had been at her side up till a second ago, only now he wasn't anywhere in sight.

Mrs. Macready barged into the room. "Princess?"

"I told you I was fine," Lucy reminded her. "It was only a…"

"Nightmare?"

"Right." Lucy forced a grin (Mrs. Macready was not an easy person to smile at). "Exactly. That's all it was."

"You sounded terrible. I've never heard a young lady with so deep-sounding a scream. Have you got a cold?"

"I don't believe so." She thought her teeth and lips were starting to hurt from keeping up smiling harmlessly for so long. Lucy wasn't used to faking emotions; that was more Edmund's area of expertise.

"Fine, then, I'm going back out." Mrs. Macready nodded respectfully to her, seeming to remember at last that she was addressing royalty after all. "I hope you sleep better the rest of the night, Princess Lucy."

"I'm sure I will." She hoped the housekeeper couldn't see her crossed fingers behind her back, and held her breath as the woman left the room.

"Phew," said Edmund's voice from somewhere near-by.

"Edmund?" Lucy whipped her head around to look for him. "Where are you?"

"Over here, Lu." A dark head popped out from under her bed.

"Gosh, it's good you were so quick!" she said, bending down to his eye-level as he finished crawling out from his hiding place.

It occurred to them all at once how funny the situation was, now that it was over and all was well. They looked at each other with screwed up faces, likely both wondering who would be the first one to break down. Finally, neither of them could take it a second longer and they burst out into wild laughter.

Lucy's laugh was particularly contagious and high-pitched, and it dawned on Edmund after a moment of trying to repress his own hysterics, that if the Macready could hear a scream, she could hear a laugh just as easily. And they didn't want that. Fool the woman once, shame on her…Fool her twice? Well, he didn't think they'd get that far. Mrs. Macready was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them.

"Shh…" Edmund gently clamped his hand over Lucy's mouth, his shoulders shaking wildly. "Shh…She'll hear us…"

They were both collapsed on the floor by the bed, lying on their backs, when Lucy finally swallowed the last of her giggles and could be even remotely serious again.

Seeing his companion was no longer in danger of giving them away, Edmund removed his hand. Lucy was still panting a little bit, her cheeks were flushed, and there was a dust bunny he'd accidentally brought out with him from under the bed clinging to a slightly disheveled-looking lock of her hair.

For a second, staring at her, Edmund found himself wondering what would happen if he reached over, gently removed the dust bunny, then brought down his hand and caressed her cheek, leaning over her, lowering himself until his lips touched hers, kissing her; repeatedly…

"What are you staring at?" Lucy couldn't remember having ever seen _that_ expression on Edmund's face before.

He snapped out of it, feeling bitterly ashamed of himself. "You have a clump of dust in your hair."

"Oh." She reached up to remove it, but only got part of it out. "Did I get it?"

"No, most of it's still there." Edmund chuckled mildly. "Here." He removed it for her, but immediately withdrew his hand afterwards. "There you are, all set."

"Thanks."

"I should go." He stood up, brushed himself off, and looked to the door.

"Ed?"

"Yes?"

"Are you sure you're all right?"

No, he wasn't. "Never better. See you later, Lu."

"Edmund, wait."

"What?"

"Let me check to see if the cost is clear. It would be a terrible pity to get caught after all that."

Unfortunately, Edmund was indeed caught. But it wasn't Mrs. Macready who caught him, though, nor was it in the corridor Lucy's room was located in that he suddenly found himself fighting, thankful to no end that he had decided to wear a sword attached to his hip when he left his room earlier.

It was a familiar young man of Telmarine ethnicity that came at him out of nowhere; namely, his own roommate.

He wondered what Caspian could have possibly been thinking, what in Aslan's name his problem was, but he pushed those thoughts aside temporarily and fought as hard as he could. Sword to sword, steel to steel, and yet it had to be quieter than average, because of the hour. How they got on like that Edmund never could work out, even in his own mind, when he thought it over after the matter was concluded.

Caspian was a skilled fighter, but not _quite_ as good as he himself was, and Edmund wished he were a little taller, for then he might have truly had him. He might have gotten away. Save for their difference in age, the two were shockingly well-matched opponents. They both knew every trick in the book and used each one to their advantage.

Another thought blazed through Edmund's mind like a burning comet: where the devil was Drinian? Wasn't it his job to stop boys from fighting in the corridors? Some dormitory director _he_ was!

Taking into consideration the current circumstances, Edmund thought he would have given anything for an authority figure to break things up; even if that figure was Mrs. Macready.

The next thing the count was aware of, he was pinned back against the wall, Caspian's sword pressed against his neck.

"We need to talk," Caspian whisper-spat at him.

"If this is your idea of talking," Edmund hissed back, "then I would hate to see what you would do in a fight to the death!"

"Shut up," snapped Caspian, glaring at him. "I could slit your rotten throat right now and save everyone a whole lot of trouble."

Edmund blinked, stunned by the venom and anger in Caspian's voice. Since when were they enemies? Sure, they didn't know each other all that well, but out of his two roommates, Caspian was his favorite. Only, just now, Eustace Scrubb (annoying as anything, but asleep and not a threat), was knocking him right out of that spot.

"What's going on?"

"I know what you are," he said through his teeth.

"And what is that, exactly?"

"You work for a witch, don't you?"

"What? No! Caspian, have you lost it?"

"You had better tell me the truth. If you don't cooperate with me, I'll kill you."

"Unpardonable and uncalled for blackmail…getting my throat slit…" Edmund hummed with pretend-pensiveness. "Can't say which sounds most fun."

"This is no time to be joking, traitor."

Edmund's eyes narrowed and darkened. "What did you just call me?"

"You heard me."

"Are you going to explain what the devil you're talking about, or are you just going to stand here till dawn threatening my neck?"

"All right, you," Caspian gave in. "Listen and listen well." One hand still holding the sword to Edmund's neck, he reached into his tunic pocket and pulled out a familiar object. "Do you recognize this?"

It was the handkerchief Lucy had loaned him, the one that had the silver locket bound up in it.

"Um, Caspian, maybe your eyesight isn't that good in the dark, but that is a handkerchief wrapped around a joke present from a long time ago. Hardly anything you can use to convict me of being a witch's servant."

"What do you think I found next to it, you moron?"

Edmund gulped. The stone knife. Caspian had found the stone knife. "What have you done with it?"

"Left it exactly where you hid it, of course!" said Caspian, sounding surprised in spite of everything. "You think I'm going to _touch_ that cursed blade? How stupid do you think I am?"

"I'm guessing that's a rhetorical question," Edmund answered, masking his relief that the knife hadn't been stolen along with being found out.

"Funny," said Caspian, as though he thought it was anything but.

"Are we done here?"

"Hardly."

"Someone will hear us."

"Like who?"

Good point. "I don't know. Drinian?"

"Do you really think Drinian would stop me? Do you think he wants you to destroy everything he's strived to protect?"

"I really have no idea what you're talking about," Edmund reminded him. "You _do_ know that, don't you?"

"Tell me what you're doing with that knife. Do you have some sort of plan to hurt the princess? And you had better not lie to me."

Edmund almost laughed when he heard that. "Is that what this is all about? By the Lion's mane, Caspian! You think I'm plotting against _Lucy_? Seriously?"

"You have a magical evil emblem hidden under the floorboards, and you're always with her…It isn't hard to put two and two together."

"I'm with her because we're friends," Edmund told him. "I'm not going to hurt her."

"Why do you have the stone knife, then? Where did you get it?"

"That's none of your business," he said flatly.

"Yes it is. And you have no choice, you have to tell me."

"Oh, I think not." Edmund smirked coldly. "Look down."

Caspian's sword was still pressed against Edmund's neck, but what he hadn't noticed was that sometime in the middle of their conversation, Edmund had managed to put his own sword against his chest in defense.

"How did you do that?"

"You're good, Caspian, but not _that_ good. I learned how to use a sword at the royal court, remember? And I was already a fighter before that. You don't intimidate me as much as you seem to think you do."

He scowled. "Touché."

Edmund knew his heart was beating like a drum but hoped Caspian would think it was due to anger, not fear. "Good. Let me go at once."

"Keep your life," he said. "But know I will be keeping a sharp eye on you. Twenty-four hours a day, Edmund."

"That's fantastic, you know there's twenty-four hours in a day!" Edmund freed himself from the wall and returned his sword to its place at his hip. "Is that how you came to be valedictorian?"

"Where were you?" Caspian called after him.

Edmund turned half-way around. "I don't have to tell you that any more than you have to tell me where _you_ were the other night."

Caspian's blood ran cold. In all his anger at his discovery of the stone knife, and fear for the safety of his monarch, he had forgotten that Edmund knew about him sneaking out. It occurred to him that Coriakin wouldn't punish him as he himself was a major part of those meetings, but it wasn't the headmaster he was afraid of Edmund telling, nor Drinian or any of the others, it was people outside of that group he feared. Enemies could show their ugly faces anywhere, and Edmund could single-handedly make an already problematic situation worse.

"Edmund, listen, you don't know what we're up against." Caspian's tone was quieter, even a touch apologetic.

"We're?" Edmund repeated. "As in you and me?"

"No, as in…" He stopped, his eyes squinting suspiciously. "Wait, we aren't allies. I am not telling you anything!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"Weirdo," Edmund muttered under his breath, bluffing to himself. Then he remembered something. "Hold on a second, give me back that handkerchief and what's in it."

"Why?"

"Because it's mine, genius."

"Here, take it." Caspian tossed it to him.

The first things Edmund noticed when he made it back to his room were the dug-up floorboard and the hilt of the stone knife gleaming in the remainder of the moonlight seeping in from the window.

Repressing his heavy breathing, he reached down and took it out. He couldn't hide it anymore, but he'd probably be able to disguise it and keep it on his person from here on out. Only Caspian would know what it was, and only vaguely for that matter, as he knew nothing of Edmund's early childhood. It was a good thing people were afraid to touch the knife, otherwise he might have lost it tonight.

"Dear Aslan," he murmured, sinking into his hammock, clutching the stone knife's hilt as close to his body as possible. "I hate this school."


	7. Observations

"I wish you had not acted so rashly, Caspian," said Professor Kirke, shaking his head. "Fighting in the corridor…" He sighed and used the blade of a small dull-black knife to sharpen his peacock-feather quill pen. "It wasn't the best choice you've ever made, my friend."

Caspian had the decency to look ashamed, at least.

The professor had a point, and a very valid one at that, but Caspian hadn't meant to do anything wrong. When he discovered the stone knife he had felt frightened-even betrayed-not to mention shocked; he had taken Edmund for a better person than the knife indicated he was. And his principal intention was nothing more than to protect Narnia's future monarch. Furthermore, if the professor and headmaster's suspicions were correct, and anything happened to Lucy before they could know for certain…well, he wasn't sure he could deal with that. And supposing they were wrong about Lucy, even if such were the case, he wouldn't want any harm to come to her; little as he knew her, he liked her-and she was Narnia's princess besides.

He also knew that, like his choice to fight Edmund in the corridor, picking this time and place to approach Professor Kirke, in the morning before his first class arrived, probably wasn't the best decision he could have come to. Only, he couldn't wait until the next meeting; he felt he had to tell someone or he would burst from the duel effects of a slightly guilty conscience and a highly fearful anticipation.

In a low voice, Caspian attempted to defend his actions to some extent. "But the stone knife…it _is_ evil, is it not? What if Edmund was lying to me last night? He's so close to Princess Lucy; he even shares her last name! He could hurt her, Professor."

The professor arched a brow at him. "He _could_ , presumably. But that doesn't mean he _will_ do so. Nor do I think it was any excuse for you to attack him like that. If he had meant some evil, I confess I don't see what good your bullying would have done, however pure your intentions were."

"You honestly don't believe he is a threat?" asked Caspian.

"Not," Professor Kirke mused, bringing a tobacco-stuffed pipe to his lips and lighting it, "in the same way you do. I don't think he's safe, certainly keeping an eye on him would be the course of wisdom, no doubt, but I believe his role is not quite the one you imagined when you panicked over your discovery. And if he is who I think he is, then by the Lion's mane, fearful of him or not, you owed him more respect than you showed last night."

"I am sorry, Professor." Caspian sighed and looked to the door (which was slightly ajar) to be sure no one was listening. "But, out of curiosity, just what role exactly has your mind attributed to him?"

It was dangerous to speak of such things so openly, but the professor was clever and was skilled at the art of subtlety. A half-smile on his face, the old man reached for the silver apple tobacco holder, made sure the lid was on tightly enough so that its contents would not fall out, and tossed it to Caspian, both of his eyebrows up now.

He looked down at the silver apple in his hand, then back at the history professor. "Oh, come on! You cannot seriously think…"

"Oh," said Professor Kirke, "but I can. And what's more? Until further evidence which convinces me otherwise turns up, I do."

"This is getting steep," muttered Caspian, putting a hand to his forehead.

"Approaching the perpendicular," Professor Kirke agreed. "Now, however, you have your own lessons to attend to, and I have a class coming in at any second. We will speak no more of this until the next meeting, understood?"

Caspian nodded. "I understand. And…I'm sorry…"

"Don't be sorry, my friend, simply, in future, let us know before you do something drastic like that," he told him kindly.

"Thank you," said the Telmarine valedictorian, grateful that Digory was not too upset with him, "and I will."

A few days later, all of the first-year students were taken out on a physical education field trip to one of the large fresh-water lakes in the Western Woods.

Digory Kirke had no business coming along, but there was something he particularly wanted Caspian to see, something he himself had not seen but knew through hearsay, something he felt tipped the balance in favor of his theory regarding Edmund. He mentioned this to Coriakin, who, after giving the matter some thought, recommended Digory take the third-year students out on a field trip to visit some minor historical sites near-by the lake Gumpas was taking the first-year pupils to. He said he supposed the other third-years wouldn't take in the significance of what they would be seeing, Caspian being the sole exception, so there wasn't any risk in the endeavor.

Edmund was aware that Caspian had been watching him more closely after that fight in the corridor, and he kept the stone knife disguised on a belt strapped his hip at all times now, but he wasn't aware of Professor Kirke's thoughts, involvement, or his plans to take the third-years anywhere. So for the most part, he and Lucy were both oblivious to what was happening around them as they stood on the edge of the lake with their other classmates.

Secretly, Edmund was excited at the chance to swim again. His only concern was for the stone knife, as he couldn't wear it in the water, but he decided he would conceal it in his clothes-pile close by the water's edge and would be sure to keep an eye on it. Lucy was just plain glad to be out-of-doors with her friends; Jill Pole and Marjorie Preston as well as Edmund.

Most of the girls had swimming-gowns, which were special dresses made of light fabric that covered them up but didn't impede their movement in the water. Lucy had had one of her own back at Cair Paravel, but it had gotten lost along with her trunk, so she had to be contented with the shortest breeches and lightest long gray shift Edmund could find for her.

Changing into her swimming-gown alongside Jill Pole behind a tight-knit group of five or six chestnut trees, Marjorie peeped her head out and watched Edmund lifting his tunic over his head.

"Don't stare!" Jill whisper-hissed to her, trying not to laugh and to be as serious-faced as possible in her reprimand. "Think how you would feel if he did that to you."

"It isn't the same thing," Marjorie defended herself. "Not at all. Boys don't wear anything over their chests when they swim, so it's not like he's trying to be discreet or anything."

Jill didn't say anything; it wasn't really her business, she supposed, and she thought she felt another long-winded 'ode to Edmund Pevensie' conversation building up in Marjorie and wasn't sure she had the patience for it at the moment.

"Jill?"

"Yes?"

"Do you really think he would try to peek at me?" Marjorie reddened, as if embarrassed by her own nerve in asking that question.

"I don't know," Jill said dismissively.

"Oh." Marjorie looked down and finished adjusting her bathing-gown. "I've heard he's an excellent swimmer."

"So have I," said Jill exasperatedly, with pardonable sharpness. "From _you_ , after somebody told you that."

"Sorry." Marjorie blushed again.

Jill's expression softened. "You must really like him."

"Yeah." She peeped out at him again. "He looks good without his tunic, don't you think?"

"Sure," said Jill.

"If I fell into the deep-end of the lake, do you think Edmund would save me from drowning?"

"No, I'm pretty sure he would let you sink to the bottom for the sake of peace and quiet." Jill grinned playfully at her friend.

Marjorie looked stricken.

"I'm _kidding_!" She put a hand on her shoulder. "But don't you think about trying it," she warned her. "With your luck, you would end up getting rescued by Gumpas. Or worse, his new assistant, Pug."

"Ew," Marjorie muttered under her breath. That was enough to scare her out of putting her idea into action. Gumpas was unpleasant in his own lazy, pompous 'holier than thou', vain manner of being; Pug was just like him, only fatter and cruder, and in possession of a much more irritating laugh.

Gumpas called for everyone to get into the water. Some of the girls dipped their toes in gingerly, whining that it was too cold for them. Lucy and Jill both waded right in without a second thought. Edmund took a deep breath and jumped into the deepest part of the lake without hesitation.

Professor Kirke, passing by, nudged Caspian discreetly. "What do you think?"

Caspian squinted over at Edmund moving through the water. "Well, he certainly can swim."

"And does that remind you of anyone else you've ever heard of?"

"Yes," said Caspian, but he thought to himself that it was a mite foolhardy basing all their assumptions solely on the facts that Edmund had given an apple to someone royal and was a strong swimmer; what if they were wrong? There were, after all, some things that didn't match up to the professor's theory, however strong his argument, and Caspian intended to bring out those points at the next meeting.

"Hi! Professor Kirke," snapped Anne Featherstone, coming out of a thicket, hopping on one foot, one of her shoes (covered in mud and broken at the heel) currently being clutched like an injured bird in her hand, "what exactly are we supposed to be looking at?"

"This way. There's a certain shrub said to have been planted here by a visiting Archenland duke a few more miles inward." Professor Kirke led them away from the lake and continued his lesson. "And, if we keep our eyes open, we might spy a close relative of the very breed of hawks that have been used in royal hunting parties time out of mind."

At first the first-years' swimming lessons went well. Those who knew how to swim did laps while those who didn't remained in the shallow end of the lake. Gumpas was supposed to be the teacher, but he didn't seem inclined to do much of anything aside from sitting next to Pug and whispering. He didn't go into the water himself, at any rate; nor did he give any instruction to the swimmers.

After a while, however, things got a little out of hand. Two boys banged heads hard enough almost to knock them both out while playing what appeared to be a rougher version of Marco-Polo. One girl claimed she'd gotten bit by something in the water and broke out into hysterics when no one would believe her. Several others (including Edmund, Lucy, and Jill) got into a rather deadly splashing-war, and couldn't decide afterwards who had won considering no one was keeping count of the splashes and all of them had equal amounts of water stuck up their noses.

Marjorie half-regretted taking Jill's advice when Eustace almost drowned and Edmund had to catch the arms of the yowling boy and drag him to shore kicking and screaming, and crying much harder than he had any right to under the circumstances. She thought that if had been _her_ that was rescued, she would have thanked him brokenly for saving her life, not threatened to lodge a disposition against him.

Gumpas and Pug didn't seem to notice Eustace Clarence Scrubb's near-death experience, and Edmund thought, plopping the little ingrate's thrashing body onto the grassy shore, that maybe they wouldn't have actually cared if they had.

The air was much cooler later in the day when everyone was out of the water, drying off and waiting to go back to school, but it still wasn't cold enough for a heavy cloak, which was why Lucy was surprised when she felt Edmund lift one up over her shoulders.

"I'm not cold, Ed."

"Just wear the bloody cloak, all right?"

"Why?" She noticed his expression was strained.

He lowered his voice into a sharp whisper. "I don't like the way Gumpas and Pug are looking at you."

"How do you mean?" To her surprise he actually stood up and moved to her other side, sitting at an angle where his body blocked Gumpas and Pug's view of her entirely.

"Haven't you noticed? They keep whispering between themselves and then glancing over at you for long periods of time."

Lucy, despite being royalty, had never thought herself a very important person; and, believing she wasn't pretty, she did not imagine herself to be an attractive young lady in the least. So she didn't understand her friend's concern. Edmund, in contrast, thought Lucy the most important person in the world and, lie as he would to hide it, very pretty indeed, though decidedly in a non-commonplace manner, most pretty people being slightly floppy-looking and far too ethereal for his taste by comparison. Thus, there was never any attention given his dear companion that escaped his notice. If that attention was good, he only thought it her due. Yet, if it was bad or else made her uncomfortable (or made him uncomfortable _for_ her), he considered it something he wanted to nip in the bud and smash under both his feet. Gumpas and Pug taking notice of her, though honestly he couldn't be sure in which way because he was too far away to hear whatever it was they said amongst themselves, automatically put him in a bad temper.

"Am I in trouble for something?" Lucy whispered, knowing that while she didn't like Gumpas or Pug, they were as much in charge of her as Professor Kirke or any of the other instructors from the school were, and she wondered if perhaps they were upset over the splash-fight. She _had_ sort of helped instigate it, after all.

"No," said Edmund flatly. "I wouldn't worry about _that_ , Lu."

Lucy grew bored and her mind soon wandered, though Edmund's stayed put right there on the water's edge, and she found her eyes following what was some kind of hawk flying by in the distance.

For a spilt-second, after losing sight of the hawk, she saw something remarkable: two white horses tacked up elegantly with gleaming brown leather and bright silver bridles and golden saddles. On the horses sat two splendid-looking persons dressed in old-fashioned hunting array, the sort that people used when doing plays alluding to Narnia's Golden Age; a strong-looking man with golden hair and an apparently gentle-bred woman who's hair was dark, almost black. The sun was in her eyes, so Lucy could make out no details in their faces, only a vague outline. She blinked and they had vanished.

"Marjorie," she whispered breathlessly as her friend came and sat on the opposite side of Edmund, "did you see?"

"See what?"

"That man and woman on the white horses."

"I didn't see any white horses," Marjorie told her.

Strangely enough, Lucy, never one to doubt herself, suddenly felt uncertain that the white horses and persons on them had been there at all. She knew she had seen them, squinting in the sunlight, but somehow, she didn't believe they had really been there. Sometimes, when she saw Aslan in the distance and others with her did not, she always knew in spite of everything that not only had she seen him but he had indeed been right there. Her feelings regarding the figures on the horses were the exact opposite, same as she felt upon waking from a dream; she saw the dream, of course, but the events in it had never really happened and she was smart enough to know that.


	8. The School is Giving a Ball

The halls and corridors of Headmaster Coriakin's boarding school buzzed with excitement; there was to be a ball in a little less than a fortnight. And, as most young persons as a general rule find dancing and dinning and gossiping to their hearts' contentment more interesting than books and lessons and taking exams, you can understand how eagerly the pupils (whichever year they were in) anticipated it.

The female population of the school could think and speak of little else besides what they would be wearing. This created joy amongst some, but great envy amongst others. After all, not every girl enrolled there had the same amount of wealth or titles or privileges, so some would have grander gowns than others.

Anne Featherstone's much talked of ball-gown from the Lone Islands arrived in time for her to air out for the ball; and Marjorie crept over to the chair her roommate had spread the splendid garment out across to see what it was like.

Her suspicions that it would be beautiful had been quite correct: for all of Anne's faults, one could not say she had lousy taste in fashions. It was white and cream with the thinnest traces of gold thread at the sleeves and the very bottom of the gown's hem. The train itself was not particularly long, but there was a matching snow-coloured cloak trimmed with ermine (one would certainly hope it had not been a _talking_ ermine, but with somebody like Anne as the consumer you could never really be sure) fur that was a good six-inches longer than the actual back of the gown.

"Jill," whispered Marjorie to her other roommate urgently, "aren't you going to come examine the gown before she gets back?"

" _Examine_ it?" Jill scoffed, barely looking up from the book she was reading. "I'd like to dump black paint on it!"

"Oh, Jill how _can_ you!" She couldn't even conceive of ruining such a masterpiece, and her friend was speaking so coldly of it. Surely she must not have gotten a good enough look at the gown, otherwise Marjorie couldn't fathom how she could nurse such an idea.

"Calm yourself, Marjorie, I won't, you _know_ I won't." Jill placed the book down, sensing another one of her insecure roommate's hysterical fits coming on. "But it sickens me how many airs Anne puts on over that stupid garment. Furthermore, talk like yours only encourages her to think she's better than the rest of us."

Well, _isn't_ she? Marjorie couldn't help thinking. All she said out loud was, "But it _is_ such a scrumptious gown. I know _I_ couldn't help bragging about it a little if it were mine."

"Everyone's 'bragging a little' about their clothes for the ball," Jill sighed patiently; "even Puddleglum hasn't hushed about his new mourning-coloured doublet and how he supposes there will be some tragedy at the ball as likely as not, so he might as well already be dressed for for it. Anne takes it too far, though."

"You just don't like her," Marjorie murmured sulkily.

Jill's eyes darkened a little. "Well, you're right, I _don't_ like her, and I don't know why you do, either. But, as it is, you do, and that's just tough nuts for me, I accept that. Still, you haven't said a word about your own dress or gown or whatever you're going to wear, and I'd rather hear about that, since we're friends, than listen to another long-winded description of the soft ermine fur on Anne Featherstone's cloak."

Marjorie looked down at her feet. "I don't have a new gown at all. It's fairly old. I've had to ask Mrs. Macready to take it out a little because I've grown…" She frowned down at her chest. "Around the bust."

"I don't care," said Jill, "tell me about it anyway. I'm listening."

"Well, it's a very unflattering shade of crimson with indigo-coloured thread at the sleeves."

"Yes…" Jill nodded encouragingly.

"And it isn't pretty, if you're wondering. My Mother had it made for me for a serious occasion a very long time ago; so even though the fabrics are nice enough, it's not elegant. The sleeves are flat at the shoulders, not a single puff to them, and the dress itself ends in a very boring style at my ankles. Not…well, not at all like Anne's white cloak."

Jill groaned, fighting the urge to stamp her foot. "You were doing so well, Marjorie!"

"What's the point?" Marjorie flopped down on her bed dramatically. "Nothing I have to wear is worth talking about, and you know it."

"Fine." Jill placed her hands on her hips and marched over to her trunk, which was where she had to keep all of her clothes thanks to Anne's fixation with monopolizing their closet. "In that case, let me show you _my_ new gown, even though you didn't bother asking about it."

Marjorie brightened a little bit. "Oh, Jill, have you got a new gown? I didn't hear about it."

"Well it isn't _entirely_ new," Jill confessed. "But I've only worn it once before, and that was back home, so hardly anyone here has seen it."

"Oh, how lovely!" She clasped her hands together. "What colour is it?"

"Terracotta and scarlet," she told her, taking it out of the trunk and carefully unfolding it to show her.

"What a pretty brocade design!" Marjorie gasped with all sincerity, fingering the pattern. "What luck that you brought it with you to school."

A condescending laugh tinkled from the doorway. As could have easily been predicted, Anne Featherstone and two of her friends strolled in, brows arched, looking disdainfully at the gown Jill Pole was holding up.

"Not bad," Anne laughed, coming all the way into the room. "I used to have a gown a little like that when I was around seven or eight. It suits you fine, though, Jill; it hides the fact that you're, well, you know, built like a twelve year old boy."

"Yours suits you as well, Anne," Jill shot back, a fake smile plastered across her face. "I never thought any gown would be grand enough to hide the fact that it was to have a materialistic dictator stuffed into it. Perhaps I was wrong."

"Jill!" Marjorie grasped her arm. "Don't," she hissed into her ear. "You're going to make her angry. We'll be social rejects for the rest of our time here!"

"It's all right, Marjorie," Anne said coldly. "I wouldn't expect someone like Jill to know much about being materialistic, seeing as she practically has nothing. What was that your mother wrote to you in that last letter from home? That they are having a…hmm, how did she put it? 'Small debt issue'? Maybe they'll sell off that precious diamond hair pin your grandfather got from the Lone Islands. May I recommend one of the famous Ettinsmoor pawnshops? It's a good facility for the desperate."

"I'm sorry," Jill snapped, frowning, straining her expression with pretend-incomprehension. "I can't understand you, Anne, I don't speak witch."

Anne took a step towards her. "What did you just call me?" Her friends exchanged amused 'somebody's in trouble' glances.

"Nothing," Marjorie jumped in. "She was only joking, really she was. Weren't you, Jill?"

Jill said nothing.

Anne cornered her against one of the walls. "You are going to regret talking to me like that, Pole."

"Hey, that's _enough_. Leave her alone!" ordered a voice from behind where Anne's friends stood.

All five girls' eyes drifted over to the speaker; it was Lucy Pevensie, the Narnian Princess, the count of the Western Marsh at her side as usual.

"Oh, how novel, the fairytale princess is here to save the day." Anne smirked at Lucy, not intimidated. "Maybe Count Edmund here will be kind enough to loan you a sword along with that doublet; then you can charge into places reeking like a boy and rescuing damsels in distress with more ease."

"Stop bothering Jill," Lucy responded tersely, ignoring Anne's rude comment.

"Or what?" Anne asked. "You'll kick me with those over-sized boy boots you're shuffling around in?"

"You know what?" Lucy's brows furrowed angrily as she folded her arms across her chest, taking a step closer to Anne. "I honestly would like to, but you aren't worth getting punished and missing the ball for."

"And what are _you_ going to wear to the ball, Your Highness?" she sniffed with contempt. "Your best friend's chain-mail shirt?" Anne sighed in a mean, taunting way. "Yes, you're quite right, Lucy, I wouldn't like to get punished for fighting and miss seeing _that_."

"Come on, Jill, and you too, Marjorie," said Lucy, motioning for her friends to leave the room with her. "Do let's go to my room for a little while. We can talk there until Anne gets over herself."

"Wait, I know what you're going to do," Anne declared, grinning wickedly at the Narnian princess. "You're going to ask those figures on the white horses to bring you something decent to wear from the royal court. I'm sure they can make it there and back if they ride all night."

The only two persons who had heard Lucy mention her vision of the white horses were Edmund and Marjorie. Edmund never said more than two words to Anne if he could help it, so that only left one possible tell-tale.

"Marjorie!" Lucy looked over at her brokenly, feeling sort of betrayed. "Why did you tell her about that?"

"I didn't think it was a big deal," Marjorie protested, holding out her hands to her friend across the room apologetically. "I'm so sorry." She was meant to be speaking the last three words to Lucy, but for some reason she looked at Edmund when she said them.

"It isn't me you owe an apology to," Edmund said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Oh, wait a moment," continued Anne, "Lucy doesn't need white horses, does she? There's always her magic Lion instead. Little baby still believes in Aslan. If he fails, you can always try Father Christmas, so it's a win-win, isn't it?"

Lucy's face went red and she clenched her fists. No one said bad things to her about Aslan and got away with it.

"So that's why you wanted me to leave Jill alone? So your precious Aslan didn't eat me? How thoughtful of you."

"Anne, don't," Edmund warned her, knowing Lucy far better than she did.

But Anne would not let it go and went on about Aslan in a sing-songy voice until Lucy could take no more of it and finally flung herself at her, giving Anne a fierce shove that threw her across the room onto the floor by the chair where her ball-gown was.

Lucy would have fought longer and harder, but Edmund jumped in front of her and grabbed her shoulders. "Lucy, listen to me! It's all right, don't fight her."

"But, Ed, she said-"

"I know, but she isn't worth all this, you know that."

There were tears forming in Lucy's eyes, but the sobbing in the room did not come from her; it was Marjorie who was steadily weeping where she stood. Anne was going to hate her for ever now, and both Jill and Lucy were probably cross with her at the moment…everything was falling apart…

"For pity's sake, Marjorie," said Edmund sternly, currently the only true voice of reason in the room, glancing over at her, still holding onto Lucy's trembling upper arms, "do buck up already. What are you crying for anyhow? No one's hurt _you_."

"Is nobody going to help me up?" demanded Anne from her landing-place angrily.

"Oh, help yourself up," Jill growled at her. "I'm sure I couldn't lift your weight, seeing as I'm built like a twelve year old boy, apparently."

Shakily, Marjorie scrambled over to help Anne, seeing as someone had to, and her two friends were doing nothing but standing there watching everything that was happening.

"Bloody well took you long enough," grumped Anne, shoving Marjorie away as soon as she was on her feet again.

"I suppose you know Aslan, too?" One of Anne's friends said to Edmund in a tone that was probably meant to be sarcastic.

"Well-" Edmund tightened his grip around Lucy's shoulders. "He knows me."

Lucy smiled at that, beginning to feel better.

Not even a full hour later, they all (Edmund, Lucy, Jill, Marjorie, and Anne's two friends) found themselves called one by one into Headmaster Coriakin's office, then dismissed after a rather forced-sounding interrogation on the star's part.

It wasn't surprising that Anne had told on Lucy for shoving her, but what _was_ a little surprising was that the headmaster declined to punish her for doing so.

"It isn't that I'm not sorry about your, er, _fall_ , Miss Featherstone," said Coriakin, only half-truthfully, never having been terribly fond of Anne, valedictorian though she was. "It's simply that I cannot confirm for certain what actually took place in that room." He folded his hands on his desk and shook his head at her. "See, while you did indeed inform me of two witnesses to the unfortunate accident, they both are of your close acquaintance and it's hardly surprising that they would take your side in a matter like this. Edmund Pevensie and Jill Pole, taking the other side in this argument, both said your story wasn't true." He decided not to mention that Lucy had confessed to everything and had also told him the reason _why_ she had shoved Anne.

"Marjorie Preston: she was there, surely she vouched for my story." Anne cocked her head to one side.

"Her?" The headmaster struggled not to laugh. "I couldn't get anything out of that one. She just broke down crying and said she didn't know what happened because it all went by so quickly."

"So you're not going to do anything?"

"No," said the headmaster finally. "Thank you for your time, you may leave now."

"You're only giving her special treatment because she's a princess," Anne said bitterly, standing to leave.

"Miss Featherstone," said Coriakin warningly, "watch how you speak to me. Another accusation like that, and I will be inclined to make _you_ miss the upcoming ball and give you some time to reflect on how you talk to the authority figures at this school."

The next time Anne saw Lucy after that was at supper in the dinning hall. She smirked at her and said in a mockingly-sweet voice that she was glad their little 'misunderstanding' hadn't resulted in her getting banded from the ball.

"I should have dearly missed the sight of you walking into the school ballroom in a tunic and tights when I've been looking _so_ forward to it," she added, flipping her long white-blonde hair over her shoulder as she sauntered away. "The headmaster is so kind not to disappoint me."

Lucy rolled her eyes, agreed with Puddleglum-who was seated at her table again-that Anne was indeed the sort of person who brought a chap down to low spirits, and went back to eating her meal.

Edmund didn't eat the rest of his own meal; he played with it, lost in thought, the very beginnings of a plan starting to form in his mind.

Lucy mightn't care what Anne thought of her, but he wasn't going to let that spoiled brat have the satisfaction of turning her nose up at his best friend during that ball, not if he could do anything to impede it. What was more, he suspected that, although Lucy would never say so, not one to complain, she would have _liked_ to have something new to wear to the ball.

The next morning, after history was over, Edmund told Lucy to start walking to their next class without him. "I think I forgot something back at our table, you go on ahead and I'll catch up."

"All right, I'll save you a seat if I get there first," said Lucy agreeably, walking away.

"Professor Kirke," he said, approaching the history professor's desk, looking over his shoulder to make sure they were the only ones in the room.

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Certainly. What's on your mind?"

"Uh…" He paused for a second, trying to find the right words. "How would I go about…um…buying a ball-gown?"

The professor put down the quill pen he'd been writing with while he listened to what Edmund had to say and looked up at him with a concerned, confused expression on his face, one white eyebrow raised unsurely.

"It's not for me, obviously!" Edmund blurted out, defensive.

"Ah," said Professor Kirke, with a smile. "For a certain royal friend of yours, then?"

Edmund nodded quickly.

"I see." He twisted his mouth thoughtfully. "I don't know anything about purchasing clothes for the female sex myself, but I think I can pull a favor from Mrs. Macready and have an appropriate gown made in time."

"Mrs. Macready?" he repeated doubtfully. Could that old sour-face really make anything a cheerful young lady would _want_ to wear?

"We'll need to have her give Ivy some time off," the professor explained.

"Who's Ivy?"

"One of the maids who works under her. She's quite the seamstress, and I'm sure she would be happy to do it."

"She doesn't have to do it for free," Edmund offered, feeling a tad guilty for all the work he was putting on someone he barely even knew. "I have some money…"

"Well, my boy, don't worry about the money too much, Ivy's a reasonable lass. If she decides to charge you at all, I'm sure it won't be for much."

Edmund shook his head. "No, with all due respect, Professor Kirke, I would much prefer to pay the proper amount…for the material and labor and everything…"

"Very well, then," the professor agreed warmly. "All will be done fairly."

"And, um, could you not tell anyone about this?" Edmund shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

"Mum's the word." The professor looked down at the silver apple tobacco holder on his desk. "Oh, but what sort of material did you have in mind?"

"There's more than one kind?"

"Ah, many more, and an awful lot of colours besides." Professor Kirke's eyes looked distant for a moment, as if while his body was still present in the room, his mind was far away. "My late wife Polly liked to talk about all that rot; that's how I know."

"I'm sorry." He knew it sounded lame, and yet he didn't know what else to say when confronted by the knowledge that the professor had a dead wife.

"Never-mind that, it was all a very long time ago." He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. "I'll have Ivy pick something suitable."

Edmund nodded, thanked the professor, and started walking towards the door.

Just as he was about to leave the room, something impelled him to turn half-way around and say, very quietly, "I think Lucy might look rather nice in pink," before dashing off as quickly as his legs would carry him down the corridor.

The day before the night of the ball, Edmund felt a twinge of excitement when Professor Kirke informed him that Lucy's gown was completed. He could hardly wait to see her reaction. But first he took a peek at the gown himself; he may not have known much about girls' clothing, but he thought maybe if it was truly something hideous or not to her taste he would be able to figure out as much. Thankfully, there appeared to be nothing whatsoever the matter with it. It was rose-coloured (according to Digory Kirke per what Ivy had told him, Edmund would have described it as pink since that's what it looked like, fancy priss name put aside) silk with long billowy sleeves that were loose until they gathered at the cuff at the wrist. It didn't have a train, but it would fall at least an inch and a half below Lucy's ankle, so it wouldn't look too short on her.

"I think Lucy will like it," Edmund decided as Digory wrapped it in a long piece of gray cloth, bound it inside with a bright red ribbon, and then put the bundle into a large white cardboard box.

"When are you going to give it to her?" asked the professor.

Edmund looked over his shoulder, down the empty corridor they were making the exchange in, hoping his guess that no one had business in this part of the school for the next hour at least was correct. "Soon enough. I'm just going to leave it for her in her room, actually."

"I thought you would want to give it to her in person." Professor Kirke was a little surprised; this kind of behavior seemed just the slightest bit out of character for the role he still believed Edmund was meant to fill, but then, that was life for you-full of surprises.

"No," said Edmund, shaking his head. "And will you do me one more favor?"

"Depends on what it is," the professor chuckled good-naturedly.

"If when you see Lucy later she thinks the gown was from someone else, will you promise not to tell her otherwise?"

Faint comprehension dawned on the professor and his eyes widened as it hit him. "By the mane! Edmund, you aren't even going to take any credit, are you?"

"None." As far as Lucy was concerned, she would find him just as surprised as she was to receive a ball-gown at the last minute. That had been his plan from the start. "So, how much do I owe you?"

Professor Kirke winced. He hated taking the full price from him, especially as it had all been for the sake of doing Princess Lucy a good turn, but he had promised to charge him the amount in its entirety. "Fifty-eight gold coins."

Edmund took out a small soft leather bag (the sort boys younger than him used to carry marbles in) from his doublet pocket, balancing the gown's box on his arm, and handed it to the professor. "You can keep the change; for helping me."

And before the professor could protest to this generosity, Edmund had already fled with the box, on his way to Lucy's room, which he knew he would find empty at his hour.

Once inside the room, he placed the box down on the bed, stole a piece of paper and a quill pen from Lucy's desk, and hastily, using his left hand instead of his right, wrote out a certain letter.

The letter was feigned to be written by one of Lucy's chambermaids from back at Cair Paravel, claiming that, having heard about her luggage mishap, all the servants thought she might like a new gown.

No, that seemed too far-fetched. The servants may have been fond of their princess, but they weren't likely to pull all their money together just to buy her something, not when her parents were wealthy as anything and ran the whole country.

He shook his head, crumpled that letter, and started on a new one, this time writing (still left-handed, hoping it would keep his penmanship from giving him away) as Queen Helen saying she and Frank were sorry they couldn't send her more clothes to make up for the ones she lost right away, but having heard that the school was giving a ball (really, Frank and Helen had, much as they did their best to stay informed, no idea about the ball) had sent her a new gown.

There! That might suffice. Only…he thought there was something he hadn't gotten quite right, or else had forgotten, in the letter.

Unfortunately there was no time to revise the letter again, for he could hear voices coming down the corridor, one of which he knew instinctively belonged to Lucy. She would be in the room any second now. It was all he could do to hide the first crumpled letter and gently place the newer draft inside of the box.

In the corridor, Lucy was walking alongside Marjorie, who apologized for what had happened with Anne Featherstone.

"She should not have said that about Aslan," Marjorie said sheepishly, looking down at her feet as she walked. "And I'm sorry I didn't stuck up for you in Headmaster Coriakin's office. I was just so afraid of getting into trouble, and you know how Anne is, she would be impossible to live with if I said anything against her…I didn't know what to do."

"Marjorie," said Lucy gently as they turned round a slight bend in the corridor created by a large marble pillar on a brass pedestal, "you didn't do anything wrong, really. It's not like _you_ said anything bad about Aslan. I wish you hadn't told Anne about the white horses, but I'm not going stay upset over _that_."

"So you're not angry with me?" Marjorie looked up into her friend's eyes now.

"No, of course not!" Lucy laughed.

"Good! You don't know how relieved I feel!" she exclaimed, breaking out into a warm grin. "Jill was mad at me before, but I think she's gotten over it at long last, thank heavens. I missed her companionship dreadfully the couple of days things were tense between us. It was positively brutal! And, Lucy, I _am_ glad you didn't get banded from the ball. It would really have been too mean if Jill and I both went and you couldn't come along; I don't think I would've been able to enjoy myself half so much if that were the case. The ball will be tremendous fun, even if none of us will have a gown as nice as Anne's to wear."

"Here we are," Lucy sang out cheerfully, reaching her room.

Edmund poked his head out of the doorway. "Hey, Lu."

"Edmund!" She smiled automatically, almost laughing again with surprised delight. "What are you doing here?"

"Someone's sent you a package," he said simply. "I brought it up here for you."

"Hi, Edmund," Marjorie said, blushing, realizing she hadn't greeted him yet.

Edmund had barely noticed Marjorie was even there, but he quickly said a rushed greeting back to her to be polite before returning his attention to Lucy as she entered the room, saw the box on the bed, and raced over to it.

Lucy opened the letter before finishing her examination of the contents of the box, though it took all her will-power to do so. She pursed her lips and furrowed her brows; the letter said it was from her parents, but the handwriting didn't look like Queen Helen's or King Frank's, or even any of their preferred pages' and scribes'. Furthermore, while the writer had gotten the overall warmth and feeling that was the essence of her parents down-pat, he had messed up a little on their grand tricks of speech.

"What does it say?" Marjorie asked, her tone nearly a squeal.

"It says it's from my parents who wanted me to have a new ball-gown," Lucy answered shakily, folding up the letter and placing it down on her pillow before reaching to pull back the gray cloth.

Marjorie clapped her hands and leaned closer to Lucy so she could see the gown as the princess pulled it out.

A gasp escaped from Lucy's throat as she examined it. How beautiful it was! A rose-pink silken gown that not only looked nice but also looked as if it would _feel_ nice when she wore it.

"Won't Anne be stunned when you show up in that!" Marjorie giggled, secretly hoping Anne wouldn't be angry as well as stunned. "You aren't going to try it on now, are you? Could you wait until a little later? I want to see how it looks, and I've promised to compare science notes with Jill and that awful tick Eustace (I don't know how he got into our study group all of a sudden, mind you) in twenty minutes, so I haven't time now."

"I'll try it on for you and Jill both later," Lucy promised.

"I'm going to hold you to that," Marjorie told her, waving goodbye as she swept out of the room giddily.

As soon as her friend was out of ear-shot, Lucy turned to Edmund, misty-eyed, and threw her arms around his neck, embracing him. "Thank you! Thank you so much."

"What's all this, Lu?" he said softly, gently pulling away from her. "I had nothing to do with it."

"Edmund, that's _your_ left-hand handwriting, and you got Mum's speaking style wrong. You made her sound exactly like Father."

"You know my left-hand handwriting?"

"Don't you remember that summer we decided we were going to try to fool our tutors into thinking we had both suddenly become left-handed?"

Edmund laughed rather loudly to himself as the memory came back. "Oh, yeah…" He felt a little stupid for having forgotten that in his plans.

"I can't believe…" Lucy looked down at the gown, then back at Edmund. "How did you even _find_ a ball-gown?"

Edmund shook his head, smiling teasingly at her.

So quickly it took less time than a single heartbeat, Lucy leaned forward and kissed him clumsily on the left cheek. "Thank you, it's beautiful."

"I'm glad you like it, Lu," was all he would say in reply.

"Edmund?"

"Yes?"

"Why is your face turning all red like that?" She looked genuinely concerned, raising her hand to feel his forehead to see if he was running a slight fever or something.

"Must be something I ate earlier," he lied, refusing to admit, even to himself, that he was blushing because she'd kissed him.


	9. Awareness

"Edmund," said Jill quickly and quietly, leaning over so that her mouth was in line with the count's ear and no one would over-hear what she was saying, "I've just found out that Anne Featherstone made arrangements for a school servant to announce Lucy's name and full title when she enters the ballroom. To embarrass her, I guess. Of all the cool cheek!"

Edmund chuckled at that. "I say _let_ them announce Lucy's presence, it won't hurt anyone. I can't wait to see the look on Anne's face when she realizes Lucy didn't have to borrow anything of mine after all."

Most of the pupils were in the ballroom, already starting on the festivities, but Lucy hadn't entered yet; somehow or other she had been delayed but would be arriving shortly. Anne had made a very pompous entrance early-on. Obviously she hadn't heard about Lucy's new gown, or she would have never worked so hard to give the princess extra attention.

Suddenly, Marjorie came scampering down the ballroom's grand staircase, staggering awkwardly on a pair of faded satin slippers that appeared too tight for her feet, over to Jill and Edmund. She paused for a couple of moments on the way: to examine her appearance quickly in a mirror she passed before she got any closer to Edmund, and to get a good look at Anne Featherstone in her beautiful ball-gown from the Lone Islands.

Then, finally reaching her friends, she seemed to remember what she had to tell them. "She's coming!"

Edmund and Jill didn't have to ask who she meant, they knew she was talking about Lucy, and that the Narnian Princess would be appearing on the staircase at any given moment now.

Anne whispered something snobby to the nearest of her chums and looked, grinning with a wicked gloating brightness about her face, towards the staircase as a tall faun with a scroll and a long, thin trumpet in his hands, wearing an ebony-coloured, gold-fringed muffler round his neck, appeared on the side.

"This is it," said Marjorie. To herself, in her mind, she added, "I hope Anne isn't _too_ vexed when she sees Lucy's gown, since it's almost as nice as hers." No one else was wearing anything that came even remotely close to out-shinning Anne; Lucy Pevensie was the only one who stood a chance, and the foreknowledge of that fact was hard on Marjorie's fragile nerves.

The faun blew into his trumpet so long and hard that Edmund thought the poor chap was going to pass out if he didn't stop and breathe. Then he called out, very loudly indeed, half-deaf from his own trumpeting as likely as not, "Her Royal Highness, Princess Lucy Rose Swanwhite the fourth of the Noble Monarchy of the House of Pevensie, Daughter of King Frank and Queen Helen, appointed by the gift of Aslan, the great Lion, son of the Emperor over the sea."

"By Jove!" gasped Jill, nearly laughing. "I didn't know Lucy had all _that_ attached to her name."

"Actually, that's the slightly shorter version," Edmund told her. "There's another one that goes back down her linage for almost half a century. It gets old remarkably fast."

They said no more, for Lucy was standing on top of the staircase now, positioned barely an inch away from the golden railing that surrounded it, looking down at them.

The rose-pink gown fit her more perfectly even than Edmund imagined it would, and she wore her hair loose (it waved slightly in places where there had been plaits of braids earlier before she took them out) and her head was bare. On her feet were a pair of pinkish-white ballet flats that fastened themselves in place with spider-web-thin gossamer thread, loaned to her by Jill Pole.

"Where did she get that gown?" hissed Anne, looking confounded.

"I don't know, but it's awful nice!" one of her friends blurted out.

Anne scowled and cocked her head at the friend foolish enough to say that out loud.

The girl's eyes popped slightly, registering Anne's displeasure. "I mean," she fumbled for the right words to make all well again, "not awful nice as in nice like _our_ gowns…awful nice like… _awful_ , you know, bad…"

"Oh, shut up." Anne wrinkled her nose in disgust, snorted disbelievingly, and rolled her eyes.

When Lucy reached the bottom of the staircase, Jill said warmly, voicing her approval though she had already seen the gown before when the princess had kept her promise and tried it on for her and Marjorie, "You look so regal, like a merry fairy-queen in a theater production! It's lucky your parents sent you that gown in time."

Lucy glanced half-knowingly, half-shyly at Edmund, who, in turn, briefly winked at her.

"Yes," she said softly, feeling a little over-whelmed as well as grateful for everything, "it was very lucky."

Jill hooked her arm around Lucy's and whispered, "You've got to see the dessert cart; they've got every sort of pastry and candy known to Narnia, Archenland, and Calormen. Come, I'll show you where it is."

"Want me to bring you something?" Lucy offered Edmund, over her shoulder as she and her friend were leaving his side.

"Sure," he agreed, thinking he could do with a snack.

"All right, then."

"Anything but Turkish Delight." He knew he didn't have to remind her, considering that she knew his distain for that particular kind of candy, though not the full reason, but the words slipped passed his lips out of old habit from his first couple of years at Cair.

"Why doesn't he like Turkish Delight?" Jill asked once they were out of his hearing range.

"I don't know." Lucy shrugged. "He never has. Well, once he told me that he used to like it when he was very, very small but hasn't been able to tolerate it since. He never says why."

"Haven't you ever asked?" she wanted to know, finding it a little curious that Edmund and Lucy-such good friends-still had secrets between them.

"Well, yes," Lucy admited, her face withdrawing a little. "But he wouldn't tell me." She left out that he-only being about ten years old at the time she finally decided to ask him flat out-had uncharacteristically thrust his face into hands and begun to cry openly till she put her arms around him and calmed him down; that was a private story, not for anyone else to know about just for the asking.

When they reached the dessert cart, a great shinning white-gold contraption supported by four slender, but strong, silver wheels and piled generously with various sweeties, they found themselves face to face with Anne, who was helping herself, very pretentiously, to a corn-muffin top.

"So," she sniffed, "where did you get the gown, Princess?"

"Looks like the people on the white horses came through splendidly, doesn't it?" Jill replied shortly, picking up a round chocolate cupcake with cream-cheese icing.

Lucy said nothing, she merely smiled as quickly and generously at Anne as she could possibly manage, and chose two fair-sized black-and-white cookies; one for herself and one for Edmund.

"Maybe the daughter of a god made it," said a voice from directly behind them.

They all turned round to see Caspian standing there; he seemed pleased to see Lucy and Jill, but extremely annoyed by Anne's presence, as usual.

"Right," Anne scoffed, wiping her fingers on a cloth napkin which she then unceremoniously tossed to her closest friend and ordered them to dispose of for her. "Daughter of a god, that's what it was."

"You never know," Caspian said.

"Whatever." Anne left them and went back to gossiping with and yelling at her compatriots.

"Caspian! How good to see you," said Lucy. She might have thought differently if she had known that he had recently fought her best friend unprovoked in a corridor, but, as Edmund never told her about that, she was only too happy to consider the Telmarine valedictorian a good companion.

"Wonderful to see you as well, Your Highness. That was some grand entry you made."

"I didn't plan that, I swear."

"Wouldn't matter either way, Your Highness," he said kindly. "It is only your right, regardless."

"Lucy, please."

"What?"

"Call me Lucy. Just Lucy."

"Oh, all right, Lucy then," Caspian agreed. "And how are you enjoying the ball so far, Lucy?"

"Very much," she said truthfully.

"Good, good." He looked thoughtful. "No trouble, I hope?"

"Trouble?" Lucy furrowed her brow. "No, not really."

"No one has said anything…er, unkind or startling?"

"No, I think not." Lucy's whole forehead was crinkled in confusion by this point. "Unless you mean Anne Featherstone."

"No, that is not what I mean," he told her, sounding a tad relieved. "I'm sure everyone here is used to _her_ sort of unkindness."

"Are you all right?" He looked anxious and that was beginning to make Lucy feel concerned.

"I'm fine," he answered. Then (to Jill) he added, "Eustace Clarence was looking for you."

"Ugh." She pouted, not exactly pleased. "Why?"

"I think he wanted to talk about the study group you are both in."

"Now?" Jill asked in disbelief, her mouth falling slightly agape. "In the middle of a ball?"

"You know how much the little blighter cares about his marks," Caspian said apologetically. "I promised I would pass on the message."

"Well, I'll go see what he wants now, but if Scrubb thinks I am going to spend the whole ball talking about schoolwork, he is mad," Jill declared, going to look for Eustace. Oddly enough, although Eustace annoyed her dreadfully, she seemed to dislike him a little less than everyone else enrolled at the school currently did.

Alone with Lucy at the dessert cart, Caspian took something off of the belt fastened around the middle of his Narnian-style tunic. It was a small dagger in a dark copper sheath.

"A dagger?" Lucy had always wanted one, but Caspian had no way of knowing that, so it didn't make sense that he was holding one out to her now.

"Go on, take it, it's yours."

One of her hands reached for it. "What's it for?"

"In case you need it tonight."

"Why would I need a dagger at a ball?"

"You never know. Take it and keep it hidden in the folds of your gown, all right?"

"Sure, but…" Her voice trailed off as she took it and tried to think of a way to fasten it around herself when she was wearing a ball-gown. She _could_ hide in the folds like he suggested, but then it would fall out when she danced or walked about the ballroom.

"Take care, Your Majesty."

"What?" She had been studying the dagger now spread across her two open palms, only now she looked up in utter shock. No one ever called her 'Your Majesty'; that was what people called her parents. Lucy had always, for as long as she could remember, been 'Your Highness'.

But she was not to get any explanations from Caspian at the moment, for he had vanished.

"That was strange," murmured Lucy. Then, feeling a chill run down her back although the ballroom was not the least bit cold, she hurried off to a shadowy corner in an arch under the staircase to work at hiding the dagger.

She wasn't sure why she was doing this, but something in the back of her mind was urging her to keep it on her person, to do as Caspian had told her more or less. In the end, after much inward debate and quietly muttered fuss, she managed to strap the sheath around the upper thigh of her right leg. It wasn't comfortable, exactly, but it wasn't so bad either, kind of like having a string drawn just a little too tightly around a finger or wrist. She was aware every second, during every single movement she made, that it was there, yet that knowledge was not to the point of being irksome.

Cautiously, she smoothed the skirt of the gown over the dagger, making sure it didn't leave an impression, then she stepped out of the arch and rejoined the rest of the ball.

It occurred to Lucy suddenly that she'd forgotten to give Edmund his cookie, and she went back to the dessert cart realizing she had left both her own and his behind there. The whole way, she felt the dagger's sheath rubbing ominously against her thigh.

Edmund, meanwhile, had been having a bit of a, if not disagreeable, than at least _disappointing_ time in Lucy's absence.

Directly after Lucy had gone with Jill to the dessert cart, Marjorie had approached him and made rather lengthy small-talk with him to such an extent that he began to wish she had accompanied the other two girls and gotten herself something to eat, thinking that perhaps she would have less to say if only her mouth had been full. It might not have been so bad if she had something to say that was not about pretty clothing. Pretty clothing was all well and good in its place, and even if he couldn't fully understand _why_ , Edmund had long ago accepted that the female sex had a fixation with talking about their favorite scarves and hats and boots and dresses; but that didn't mean he wanted to hear a long-winded description of every single item in Anne Featherstone's closet and all of Marjorie's gushing thoughts on them.

When Marjorie finally finished telling him all about how she wished she had a velvet mint-green hat trimmed with polar bear fur because she had heard that it was very fashionable at the moment, she took a long breath, sighed to herself, and then asked, "Would you like to dance?"

 _Actually, yes…with Lucy…_ But he knew that was not what she had meant. Moreover, Lucy was no where in sight, having been-unbeknownst to him-away from everybody, strapping a dagger to her thigh.

"Sure," he said, at last, "why not?" Perhaps, if he was fortunate, she might not be of the sort that liked to talk while she danced.

"Really?" Her eyes lit up, and the expression on her face, like she had been expecting him to say no and was over the moon that he hadn't, made Edmund feel a little bad.

Clearly, what was happening here was plain and simple, he thought: Marjorie didn't really know any of the other boys present, and since she knew him from her association with Lucy, seeing nearly everyone else dancing and feeling left out, she asked him. Poor girl.

He nodded, and her already broad smile widened considerably as she took his hand.

Unfortunately, Edmund's hopes that Marjorie could dance were completely unfounded on any true fact whatsoever and were proven wrong almost instantaneously. She must have stepped on his feet at least half a dozen times, only he couldn't get upset or even say, "Ouch!" too often, because she would get beet-red in the face every time and apologize until he never wanted to hear another, 'I'm so, so, so sorry!' again in his life.

When the dance ended and he spotted his best friend back at the dessert cart again, Edmund fast-walked over to her as quickly as he humanly could without breaking out into a full-on run.

"Lucy," he said urgently, grabbing onto her wrist, "quick! Dance with me so Marjorie doesn't ask again."

The last thing Edmund wanted to do was hurt the sensitive girl's feelings, but neither his feet nor his nerves could stand another round of dancing with her; he'd much rather have Lucy, since he knew they could dance together alright (she wasn't naturally graceful, but princesses are trained-unwillingly in some cases-from an early age to glide through ballrooms without stepping on people's feet), remembering that they had had the exact same dancing tutor back at Cair Paravel.

Poor Marjorie, thought Lucy, suppressing a giggle of amusement, not wanting to be unkind.

She placed the black-and-white cookies back down on the cart and they were forgotten again, this time for good.

The song the orchestra Coriakin had hired were playing as Edmund led Lucy out for his second dance of the evening was a very slow one. The count had not anticipated this; if he had, he would have likely sat out the song entirely and saved dancing for the next one. Not that the notion of a slow dance with Lucy didn't give him a twinge of pleasure, it was just that it was a little awkward as well, and he might have preferred to avoid the unease altogether.

The start of that dance, however, turned out to be a turning point in Lucy's way of seeing the world, little as anyone would have suspected such. Everything was the same as it had always been, right up till the moment when one of Edmund's arms slipped around her waist.

If Lucy had thought she was as aware as a person could be concerning the dagger at her thigh, she found now that she was very wrong. The notion of the dagger dulled dramatically in comparison to what her senses were beginning to detect for the first time. The awareness that Edmund was a boy and she was a girl washed over her like a mildly alarming wave in the Eastern Sea when a storm is not yet arrived but is definitely on its way. She wondered how she could not have noticed before when, now, it was all she seemed capable of thinking about. It also occurred to her suddenly that Marjorie was quite right: Edmund _was_ handsome.

The next part of the awareness was more a change in her body than it was in her mind, though that felt altered, too. Her muscles felt like they were tightening in some places and loosening in others; there was a passing heated prickle rising in her breasts, a tingling sensation burned in her hand that rested close to Edmund's shoulder, and her breathing was quicker. For a spilt-second, she almost _couldn't_ breathe at all, and had to fight against the urge to rock back and forth in an attempt to comfort herself.

And just like that, it was over.

The wave settled itself. The storm had come and gone with surprising gentleness in spite of its overt severity. It was past, Lucy's body and breath and thoughts were back to normal, but it left its marks that would never fade. As a real storm can knock down trees and leave imprints in a landscape or unearth something in the seabed, the storm in Lucy's perception of life left the inescapable realization that she loved Edmund as more than a friend. He was still her best friend, of course, would always be no matter what, but while she didn't love him any more or less than she always had, there was a different kind of love intertwining so tightly with the first that, in his case, she almost couldn't tell them apart when the merging was completed. She was left deeply in love without understanding what it was.

In short, she was left utterly confused.

The rest of their dance passed uneventfully. And, to be sure, Edmund himself was completely unaware that anything out of the ordinary had happened. Which was why, when the song ended and he let her go, he saw nothing extraordinary or different in her face, save that it was a little flushed perhaps.

"Is it just me or is this ballroom getting a bit stuffy?" Lucy said in a normal tone of voice.

"It seems fine to me," Edmund told her.

"Not me." She shook her head. "I think I need to go out into the corridor for a breath of fresh air." Some of the windows in the corridor closest to the ballroom had been left open, so the air really would be a bit less stale out there.

"Do you want me to come with you?" he offered.

"No, I won't be long."

Edmund reached out and squeezed her hand. It was a familiar gesture, but there was something new underlining Lucy's perception of it, and she still wasn't used to that.

She was so flustered by the aftermath of the wave, not having yet thoroughly taken it in, that she almost banged into Lilliandil on her way to the grand staircase.

Lilliandil looked even more beautiful than usual, dressed in a gown of blue velvet and her hair plaited into a long braid pulled over one shoulder. Her expression was discontented, though, as if she was secretly fearing something she could not speak openly of. She watched Lucy leave, her face wary, and crept off to tell Caspian and Ivy, just in case.

The corridors were dark, not having any candles or lamps lit. It seemed that no one was expecting any of the students to leave the ball so early and so had not bothered to waste a light.

There _was_ some murky moonlight coming through the open windows, except that it disappeared whenever a cloud passed by it; and the night was over-cast.

Lucy thought herself quite alone in the corridor, so she was rather startled to see the form of a man appear at the far end. He did not speak and she could make out no more of him than his outline.

"Hullo?" she called.

The man took a step nearer, still saying nothing.

"Who are you?" she tried again.

He took a few more steps before he spoke. "Hello, Lucy."

She did not recognize him, but his voice sounded sort of familiar nonetheless, so she knew they must have met before.

The cloud blocking the moonlight outside moved. White light fell on the man's face and she saw him now; it was Gumpas.

"Oh, hello, Mr. Gumpas," said Lucy politely. "I didn't recognize you at first."

"Likewise," he said in a distant-sounding voice. "I did not know who you were before now. It's clear as day, and I wonder how I could have missed it."

Lucy was beginning to feel uncomfortable. "I don't know what you mean."

"And we're going to make sure it stays that way," said someone coming up behind her, clamping a large hand over her mouth.

She struggled, realizing after a few moments that the man holding onto her mouth was none other than Pug, but to no avail; he held on fast. What was more, she could not reach passed his thick arm to get to her hidden dagger.

There was nothing she could do, they were taking her somewhere, dragging her right out of the school doors, and she couldn't stop them.

Frightened, she began to cry.

Pug felt her tears on his hand. "Now, missie, no tears. No good to anyone carrying on like that. Won't do nothing but spoil your face in the long run. You be good and there won't be nothing to cry _about_ , see?"

"Pug's right, there's no reason for you to resist us so. Less suffering all around if you take this with a grain of salt," said Gumpas.

"We don't do this for fun, you know," Pug added. "We're only doing what we've got to, only fulfilling our role."

"There must be progress and development, and we can't have someone like you standing in the way of that, Your Majesty." Gumpas shook his head tiredly, not as if he were feeling at all guilty, but, rather, as if he was bored and wanted to be elsewhere.

Lucy felt her blood freeze in her veins. It was the second time tonight someone had called her 'Your Majesty', and while she knew Caspian couldn't have had anything to do with this cruel kidnapping, she couldn't help but think both occurrences were related somehow. Maybe that was why he had given her the dagger. Had he suspected someone meant to harm her but didn't know _who_?

They were a good distance away from the school itself now, but still on the property.

Pug let go of Lucy's mouth and showed Gumpas his hand, covered in teeth-marks. "She _bit_ me!"

"Now then, lass," Gumpas sighed, clucking his tongue, "how about if you stop play-acting and cooperate with us, eh?"

Lucy crouched down on the grass and reached up the skirt of her gown, trying to get the dagger out.

Somebody who looked like Gumpas and Pug but was neither of them, turning out to be another person altogether, who's presence she had not detected until then, pushed her over onto her side.

Pug used that moment to thrust his hand up her gown and rip the dagger out of its sheath, which still clung to her thigh.

The next thing she knew the dagger was against her throat and he was telling her not to make any trouble or else.

Her eyes shifted over passed Gumpas and the other man, falling on what was clearly a young woman, off a little ways, in a hooded gray cloak. She was apparently on the same side as Gumpas and Pug, making no attempt to help Lucy, but she didn't say anything; she nodded once at what was happening, approvingly, and then went off somewhere, not to be seen again that night.

"What do you want with me?" Lucy cried out, swallowing hard.

"In a few minutes," Pug whisper-spat into her ear, still holding the dagger to her throat, "a black carriage with no windows is coming this way. A man will get off the carriage, he and I are going to talk a bit, and then, as I'm a persuasive business man if I do say so myself, he is going to pay me good money to take you."

"Take me where?" She bit her trembling lower lip.

"Don't know," Pug admited. "Not my problem, really. You're a nice gel, I'm sure you'll do fine. Get yourself some nice master who'll give you plenty of admiration for your pluck and liveliness. But don't you bite 'im, whoever he is, like you did me."

"Why are you doing this?" Lucy wanted to know. "Why?" She had never done anything to them.

"Because, Your Majesty," Gumpas explained, with a cool shrug of his shoulders, "slaves don't change the world."

Before anything else could be said, a chilling sound caught all of their attentions. Somewhere that must have been very nearby, a wolf howled.

"No one said anything about there being any wolves out here tonight," Gumpas said. Lucy thought she heard fear in his voice. "Where's that blasted carriage already?"

Back at the ball, Edmund suddenly made a dash for the staircase. Something was wrong with Lucy. He had no logical way of knowing this, of course, but the same sort of entanglement that told Lucy when he was crying in the middle of the night but had not come to her, thus compelling her to go to him, worked on his mind now; without being told, Edmund knew Lucy needed him to go to her.

She wasn't in the corridor, so he went outside, wondering what she was thinking, going out there all by herself so late at night.

The clouds blocked the moonlight again; soon Edmund could no longer see the grounds he was racing through, searching for Lucy. The lawns and bushes and gardens and forest edges were all thrust into blackness.

Nothing else for it, the count of the Western Marsh cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed out the name of the Narnian Princess, praying she would hear and answer.

"Ed…" a weak voice croaked from the ground by his feet.

She was so near that he had almost stepped on her.

"Lucy!" He couldn't see her very well, only the rough outline of her head, but knowing it was her and that she was safe was good enough for him. "Oh, thanks be to the Lion! What happened?"

There came a ferocious growling noise.

"Lucy?"

"Edmund…run…please…" A shriek of pain died on her lips following these words.

"What is it, Lu? Are you hurt? Why don't you get up?" His voice was getting borderline frantic now, far more afraid than he was curious.

"The wolf has got my ankle," she whispered faintly.

"What?" Edmund felt his facial muscles harden with fear.

The cloud blocking the moon moved, showing Lucy to Edmund at last.

No matter how old the count got, he never, as long as he lived, forgot the horror that moon-lit sight induced in him; it was one of those nightmares that stayed with him, even haunted him, for the rest of his existence.

She was sprawled out on the ground, one of her ankles ripped savagely open and bleeding profusely, part of the hem of her gown ripped away and stained, the grass near her injured foot a little pool of reddish-black. Her face was white as salt and tear-stained. Above her bloody ankle, stood a large gray wolf, snarling at Edmund.

Lucy's wolf was not a dumb, wild animal searching for a meal; it was a _talking_ wolf with beautiful, highly-intelligent but mean-spirited, glowing eyes. Blood was caked around his mouth and dripping freely from his white-yellow front teeth.

The whole plight became abundantly clear. The wolf was there, with Lucy, all along, hurting her, and she had been trying to warn Edmund to run before the wolf got _him_ , too. When she cried out in pain it was because the wolf had bitten down on her ankle again, hard.

What Lucy hadn't known was that Edmund knew this wolf. "Maugrim…"

"Long time no see," said the wolf, chuckling. "How have you been, boy?"

"What do you think you're doing?" Edmund said to the wolf angrily, through gritted teeth, looking down at Lucy.

"Edmund…" Lucy murmured, her eyes half-closed, in too much pain to think clearly.

"Ah, got yourself a name, have you?" The wolf-Maugrim-seemed to find this amusing. "How nice for you."

"Go away, now!" Edmund told him sharply.

"I'm afraid I can't do that… _Edmund_ , is it?" Maugrim asked. "You don't know who your little friend here really is, do you?"

"Your mistress is dead," Edmund pointed out. "Why are you doing this? She isn't around to give you orders anymore; aren't you free now?"

"The captain of the White Witch's wolves is never free," growled Maugirm, baring his teeth. "And neither are you, foolish boy. She can never die. I believe she's still right there…always alive…in your mind…"

"No!" shouted Edmund, his face recoiling.

"I know what side I'm on," Maugrim told him, lowering himself next to Lucy again. "I know what I'm doing. Do you? Or do you realize now that this isn't your war? Regardless, perhaps you will want to say goodbye to your friend here, as I'll be killing her momentarily."

Edmund's eyes darkened with unrestrained rage. "That's what _you_ think!" In a flash, not even thinking about what he was doing as he did it, his hand had pulled out the stone knife from his belt, his legs had leapt over poor Lucy, and he had thrust the knife right into Maugrim's heart.

Before Maugrim's eyes closed for ever, they looked directly into Edmund's, and the wolf's mouth muttered its final words: "I know what scares you."

His hand and the stone knife covered in the wolf-captain's blood, Edmund crawled on his elbows so that his eyes were in-line with Lucy's. He shook her shoulder once, very roughly, to keep her awake.

"Don't sleep," he begged her, his voice cracking. "For the love of the Lion, Lu, do anything but that. Scream again. Talk, say anything, just don't let your eyes close all the way. All right?"

"It hurts," Lucy said, beginning to cry again.

"I know," he whispered, stroking her hair, trying to comfort her, understanding the anguish she must be in. "I was bit by a wolf once before."

"It was that same wolf," Lucy asked through her tears, fighting to keep her voice, "wasn't it?"

"Yes," said Edmund.

"You knew him, didn't you?"

"Yes, Lu."

"I thought he came to help me," Lucy wept, "that's why I didn't run right away. I could have gotten away…but I didn't run, Edmund."

Edmund ripped the sleeve of the light brown shift under his tunic off. "I'm going to try and bind your ankle, hold it as still down there as you can. This is going to hurt…a lot."

"I feel sleepy," Lucy told him.

"Tell me what happened," Edmund ordered her. "Don't sleep now. Trust me on this."

She told him about how Pug and Gumpas had grabbed her and were going to sell her as a slave and how she thought Caspian must have known something bad was going to happen because he'd given her a dagger earlier (a very nice one, only it was lost somewhere on the school grounds now).

"I'll kill them, Lu," Edmund swore bitterly, edging closer to her ankle. "I don't care that they're teachers here and I could get expelled; for what they did to you, and for what they _tried_ to do to you, I will kill them."

"Then," she went on, not able to deal presently with the anger in her best friend's voice, "the wolf came and scared them away so that they went running off, both Pug and Gumpas and that other man with them, and I saw that it was a talking wolf and thought he had come to save me…" Her voice faded, more tears streaming down her face, choking her.

"Stay where you are!"

The moon was half-covered by a dark cloud again, but Edmund could still make out that it was Caspian standing there, holding a crossbow pointed directly at him.

It took a minute, but Edmund soon understood what Caspian thought had happened. The stone knife was covered with blood, Lucy's ankle was ripped open, bleeding, Edmund was there, at her ankle, and Maugrim's corpse could not be seen, hidden in the shadows.

"You think _I_ did this to her?" Edmund cried out, aghast.

"No…" Lucy mumbled; "…Caspian, look…"

Lilliandil, her light skin glittering in the darkness, followed by Ivy, Rhince, and Professor Kirke, who was holding an old oil lantern out in front of himself to guide his step, came rushing to the Telmarine valedictorian's side.

The light of the lantern revealed Maugrim's dead body, and Edmund looked up at Caspian and the others with a mixture of defensiveness and pain in his expression.

"Dear Aslan!" Professor Kirke shook his head. "We should have been able to prevent this attack."

"Caspian," said Rhince, "help Edmund finish binding Lucy's ankle and I'll carry her back into the school."

Professor Kirke put a wrinkled old hand on Rhince's shoulder. "We'd best keep her in Coriakin's study for now. There's no need to frighten the other pupils."

"Maugrim had a pack," Edmund told them hoarsely, never-minding whether they would wonder how he knew that. "They might seek revenge or they might not. There's no way of telling with that sort of crew."

As the ripped sleeve was tightened around her ankle, Lucy screamed, and Lilliandil sang softly to her while Ivy rubbed one of her arms, trying to keep the frightened, pale-faced princess calm.

Rhince came over and-with great gentleness, knowing how to carry scared young girls, as he had a daughter of his own-lifted Lucy's limp, trembling body up into his arms.

"Edmund," said Professor Kirke as Caspian helped the count to his feet, "go clean that knife of yours and wash the blood from your face." After killing Maugrim and binding Lucy's ankle, Edmund had unwittingly rubbed at his own brow with his dirty wrist, leaving traces of blood across his lower forehead. "When you've finished, meet me in Coriakin's office. I think it's time we explained some important matters to you and Lucy both."


	10. The Rhindon Invesitgation Society

"Here," said Ivy to Lucy in a gentle tone, handing her a steaming engraved silver flagon. "Drink this. It will help dull the pain in your ankle a bit, though I'm afraid it won't do anything much for the severe limp you're sure to suffer from for a while; that's unavoidable, unfortunately."

Rhince had carried Lucy to Coriakin's office, as Professor Kirke had told him to, and placed her down in a warm cot fixed with blankets, cushions, and pillows aplenty brought in by his kindly wife Elaine.

There had been a buzzing in her head by that point; she had lost a lot of blood, was traumatized, and had been fighting like anything to stay awake since Edmund had told her she must. Now, she couldn't resist any longer, warmed by the blankets, soothed by the reassuring voices all around her, she slept.

Upon waking groggily less than an hour later, the Narnian princess found for a fleeting moment that she couldn't remember anything, and she wondered why she was lying in a dark office and why her ankle hurt so badly. Then it had all flooded back to her, the full memory of the night, and she darted her eyes franticly about the dim room, screwing her sight up searching for Edmund.

Thankfully the count had been just on the other side of the office, whispering tersely with Coriakin, who said that, while he understood that Edmund must be very upset and confused and angry about what had happened, and that he ought to know the truth about what they believed was going on, it would be best to wait for Lucy to come-to before they out-right explained anything, seeing as it mostly concerned her and she needed to hear it even more than he did.

Edmund had been about to say something very snappish to the headmaster, which he most likely would have deeply regretted, but Lucy stirred, and he was aware of her returned mental-presence in the room the second she woke.

Lucy was more important than his frustration; he rushed to her side.

It was then, as Lucy sat up in the cot with a little help from Edmund, Caspian, and Rhince, that Ivy offered the flagon.

Poor Lucy could barely grasp it, so Edmund had to hold her hands closed around the flagon, because her trembling fingers would have dropped it otherwise. He didn't mind, though; it gave him a chance to sniff at the drink, to make sure it was alright. The smell of the steam was a little sharp, but it was the sharpness of natural, non-toxic herbs, not of poison. There was another smell, beneath the steam, that was faintly of spiced wine mixed with melted chocolate to keep the wine from tasting too over-whelming. Harmless.

Ivy's drink was indeed going to help, not make things worse. The only reason Edmund had doubted the so-called maid's intentions was that, now that he saw her in her true garments, a cold ring of gold round her brow, knowing her for a god's daughter, the fear that she was also an enchantress had naturally popped into his mind.

It wasn't that he didn't trust Ivy. As it was, when he looked into the goddess-like lady's face, he believed every word she said; but then, he knew from early personal experience that that was just the sort of thing that might happen with a witch, too.

But Edmund was satisfied now, for the most part, that the river god's daughter's intentions were pure as rain towards Lucy, and he helped lift the rim of the flagon to his best friend's lips.

Lucy began to swallow it down quickly; too quickly for Edmund's liking. "Take it easy," he whispered in her ear, not unkindly, pulling the flagon back a little ways from her mouth so she could have a chance to breathe in-between sips. "Don't make yourself sick."

She coughed once and Edmund had to pound her lightly on the back, but in the end she'd managed to swallow every single drop.

Clearly the drink had done _some_ good, at least, for there was a little colour back in her face now, and her expression was no longer a repressed grimace of excruciating pain.

"Feeling better?" said Professor Kirke, nodding expectantly at Lucy.

"Yes, thank you," she replied, delighted to find that with the renewed strength Ivy's drink had given her, had come clarity of thought, causing her to feel more like herself again-in control of her own mind and body. The ankle ached sorely more than it hurt now, which was a vast improvement.

"Rhince, make sure the doors are securely shut, admit no one else in," Headmaster Coriakin ordered. "We haven't the time to call the others just now; it'll have to be myself, Digory, you and your wife, Caspian, Ivy, and Lilliandil; we can inform the other members of these new developments later."

"Members?" Edmund repeated. "Members of what?"

"All shall be explained," Digory promised him.

"The doors are shut, Sir," Rhince told Coriakin.

"Very well." The headmaster tapped a certain dent in the wall, like Caspian and the others had seen him do a hundred times before, and the secret door slid open, revealing downwards-pointing stone steps.

Edmund's jaw hung agape; Lucy's eyes widened and she sat up a little straighter.

"Edmund," said Digory Kirke, "I'm afraid Lucy will have to use your shoulder as a crutch to get down those stairs."

"I can't believe you're going to make her go down there at all," Edmund said flatly, thinking of how dangerously weak Lucy had been less than two hours ago.

"She will be perfectly safe," Coriakin cut in. "All you need do is assist her. I assume you shan't mind? When so much is at stake?"

A mix of curiosity and guilt forced Edmund to acquiesce to their demands, and he lifted Lucy off of the cot.

At first, seeing the initial look on her face when she set her foot to the office floor and felt all pins and needles shooting through her leg, almost falling over, the count seemed more disposed to _carrying_ Lucy all the way down, but Professor Kirke and Headmaster Coriakin said she needed to practice walking again as soon as possible, painful though it would be to see their royal princess fighting against a limp, unless Edmund fancied the idea of his best friend's lower leg giving up and crippling her for life. Maugrim had gotten her deeply, and her healing had to start at once, he now realized, or not at all. It was once thing for Rhince to carry her in initially, only since she had rested and gotten her drink, any further full-on carrying would hinder more than it would help.

Caspian lit a tall candle in a small golden holder and handed it to Lilliandil so that she could descend into the secret chamber where the majority of the group's "important talk" was shared. (This was quite a break with their usual meetings, the two of them always going last as a general rule, but nothing about that night's gathering followed the normal proceedings anyhow.)

Lucy limped down the steps, supporting herself on one of Edmund's shoulders, breathless and jolly nearly worn to a shadow but uncomplaining when they finally reached the bottom and found themselves in strange surroundings.

There was more light down here than in the office above; a crystal chandler blazed above their heads, lit by a light that looked like Lilliandil's skin when it glowed, only stronger and much easier to see by.

And there was quite a bit to see, for that matter.

The chamber had walls of solid gold, decked out with carvings and elaborate oil-paintings, most of them clearly depicting scenes from the stories of the Golden Age; a few of the larger ones-mainly carvings rather than portraits-were of a large Lion meant, it seemed likely, to represent Aslan.

The only furniture down here consisted of a few rows of soft-seated chairs and reclining couches, all done up in expensive-looking materials.

"What is this place?" Lucy asked, looking to Coriakin.

"Child," said the headmaster, "have you ever heard of the Rhindon Investigation Society?"

"No, never," she told him. "What is it?"

"Us, Your Majesty," said Caspian, unexpectedly bowing to her. "We've been waiting for you."

"Waiting for _us_?" Lucy repeated awkwardly, gesturing over at Edmund, thinking-somewhat mistakenly-that the Telmarine valedictorian's statement included her companion.

"Well, not _him_ so much," Caspian admited. "You, definitely."

"By Jove, don't I feel special!" Edmund muttered to himself.

Lilliandil giggled at that. "You're important, too, if we're not mistaken regarding your identity. There is no need to feel poorly."

"Indeed not," Professor Kirke agreed.

"We be in strange times," Rhince sighed.

" _We be_ losing our patience," Edmund snapped, helping Lucy down onto one of the couches. "Here, sit," he added grouchily. "I don't care what they say about the blasted healing process, Lu, after what you've gone through tonight, you are not going to be standing here while they hesitate on getting to the point for another hour."

"Are we certain it's too late not to include him?" Caspian asked Lilliandil. "If he's going to be like this the whole time, perhaps we ought…"

"Caspian?" Edmund said in a conversational tone.

"Yes?" He turned from the star's daughter to the count. "What is it?"

"Oh, so you _can_ hear me from over there," Edmund sneered sarcastically. "Thus you know I can hear everything you're saying about _me_ as well?"

"That's quite enough from the both of you," Coriakin said in a commanding voice. "Caspian, stop picking disagreements with him. Show a little respect for his position; it won't kill you, I promise. And, Edmund, for the love of the Lion, wipe that uncalled for surly expression off of your face at once; I understand how aggravating this must be for you, but you're only making it harder than it needs to be."

"This Rhindon Invitation Society thingummy," Edmund pressed, ignoring Caspian's following mumbled apologies; "what has it got to do with Lucy?"

"It's the Rhindon _Investigation_ Society," Professor Kirke corrected, motioning at a painting of a golden-bearded man holding a sword on the wall behind him. "It was named after the sword made famous by High King Peter in the Golden Age. Our secret group believes that Peter, as well as those who played an essential part in his life-story, will one day return and bring Narnia into a state similar to that of the Golden Age."

"Basically, it's a chance to reset history," Coriakin explained, his eyes somewhat aglow just thinking about the possibilities. "Imagine, Peter returns, and we have a chance to warn him of his previous mistakes before he falls again."

"Righty then," said Edmund dryly, clearly unimpressed. "So you're telling us that Peter is going to magically come back to life, brandishing Rhindon, march right into this little meeting, and say, 'gosh, thanks awfully for the warning, chaps' and change the course of Narnian History from here on out? Oh, and that his whole court is coming with him? No, that isn't far-fetched at all…"

"That's rubbish, Edmund," snorted Caspian, tossing his head back in an irritated fashion. "Of course _that's_ not how it is going to happen. And if it were, Princess Lucy would not figure into that plan, now would she?"

"The former King Peter has been gone from Narnia for a long time," said Lilliandil, in a softer tone, understanding Edmund's shock and disbelief. "But we believe that what he said to Master Tumnus before departing has a deeper meaning. It's our great responsibility to search for potential Peters in each generation. He won't return as himself, you see. Which, has made him difficult to identity. But we've found him-or, I should, say _her_ , as it turns out-at last." The star's eyes shifted to Lucy.

"Let me get this straight…" Edmund held up his hands. "You're telling me that you think Lucy is the reincarnation of High King Peter?"

"No," said Rhince, shaking his head, "not exactly."

"More like his successor, if you will," added Elaine, speaking up for the first time that night.

"Think of it like this:" Professor Kirke tried, "Queen Swanwhite had Rhindon first and was a great ruler. Next, came Peter, the greatest king Narnia has ever known, the only one able to wield Rhindon. Now…the time is come for another: Princess Lucy. She's the next high king. Or, rather, High Queen. It's her, Edmund."

"I can't be…" Lucy shrunk nervously into the couch.

"You _aren't_ ," Edmund insisted vehemently. "This is all madness."

"Madness, you say?" Professor Kirke mused reasonably, secretly wishing he had brought his pipe down into the chamber with him. "Let us explore the possibility of that. If a person is mad, they are wholly insane. Does the lucid way we speak to you sound insane, in spite of the subject matter? No, I'm afraid you have to admit it doesn't, if you're reasonable. The other possibly is that we are lying. Have you ever known us to tell lies? An allegation of lying against persons you know to be truthful is a serious matter indeed, mind you. Our last possibility here is that we are telling you the truth."

"You cannot honestly expect me to believe that _Lucy_ ," Edmund exclaimed, almost laughing from the absurdity of it all, "is the next High King Peter! What's next? Jill Pole is Lady Aravis, consort of Cor of Archenland?"

"Actually," piped Lilliandil, "that's a distinct possibility. We've been speculating about that for a while. But as Miss Pole's in no danger, and we haven't even found the Cor in this generation (if there is one), we didn't think it to be of immediate importance."

"I was being sarcastic!" Edmund protested. He couldn't believe they were taking this all so seriously. Maybe this was all some sort of weird dream; perhaps, when he saw Lucy injured and Maugrim hovering over her ankle like that, his mind went into a delusional state and now he was having walking hallucinations. Professor Kirke, at least, had always seemed so sane and logical, before he turned out to be part of this creepy society.

"This isn't something to joke about, Edmund," Ivy said. "It's a very serious matter."

"Lucy is not the one you've been waiting for; she's just Lucy. She's no High King Peter."

"Well, why not?" asked Coriakin, shrugging his shoulders. "She's his direct descendant, at any rate."

"He's a mythical character! As in _myth_ ; as in he didn't exist!"

"Edmund," said Lucy, speaking up now, sounding as if she were siding with the society rather than her best friend on this one, "where do you think those stories came from?"

"Exaggerations, Lu."

"Hogwash," muttered Professor Kirke to himself. "Exaggerations, my foot."

"We've been tracking his lineage," Coriakin explained levelly, though it was easy to see more than one or two tempers in the chamber were at the verge of being lost in all the tension. "Ivy, you see, has been around for a very, very long time. It suits us that people think the stories are not true, or only half-true, but they are-for the most part-actually quite accurate. A few details have become muddled, sure, but that doesn't mean High King Peter was not real."

"I'm really descended directly from High King Peter?" Lucy gasped, realizing that would make the hero of her favorite stories her grandfather with a lot of greats in front of his name.

"Yes," Ivy assured her.

"What if Lucy doesn't want all this?" demanded Edmund, protectively, frightened of all the horrors she would have to face, all for the sake of some stupid superstition.

"It isn't a matter of anyone wanting it," Caspian answered. "King Peter didn't want it at first, either. He grew into it. He was Swanwhite's successor, remember? Ironic that Lucy also carries that name as well, is it not?"

"It's not something you choose," Professor Kirke added, sitting down on the couch next to Lucy but still looking up at Edmund while he spoke. "It's like a mantle that passes down."

"I don't believe in this." Edmund swallowed hard.

"Edmund," said Coriakin, stroking his gray-brown beard thoughtfully, "may I ask you something?"

"Yes, of course."

"How did you know Lucy was in danger tonight?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you must have had a reason to go outside, otherwise you would have never found her in time."

Edmund closed his eyes and squeezed Lucy's hand once very lightly before answering. "Lu and I, we…we've always known when the other needs us…like, she knows when I'm upset, and I know when she's frightened."

"Did you know that Peter and Susan of Old Narnia are supposed by some sources to have been able to communicate telepathically?"

"I think I read that somewhere, once," Lucy admited.

"Wait, hold everything." Edmund glowered at the headmaster. "Are you saying _I'm_ supposed to be Susan?"

"In this generation, yes," the star told him. "Professor Kirke believes that you may represent her role in the story."

Edmund's frown deepened. It was bad enough that they were calling Lucy High King Peter, but to call _him_ Queen Susan? Didn't that just beat all? There was no way he was Susan.

Whenever Lucy read the stories that included Peter's consort aloud, though he liked the character well enough, he found himself getting frustrated with her, and he knew he would never make any of the stupid choices she was said to have made; nor would he ever moon about the way she had in several of the stories when King Peter was wounded in battle. Part of him just wanted to give her a smack (not a cruel one to make her cry, but a sharp one to get her out of her disgraceful 'woe is me' mood) and say, "Stop your whining and go to his side already, girl! You think he wants to have a near-death experience with you locked in your private sitting chamber, far away from him, bawling your eyes out, when he needs you most? You're a queen; so be one!"

It was actually Lucy who was more sympathetic to Susan, although she did tend to take Peter's part regardless.

Edmund thought he would like to see Queen Susan from the old stories _try_ to endure the hell his early childhood had been; he doubted she would have made it. She was too gentle, too soft-hearted, she would have felt pity for the wolves, maybe even for the witch…

He listened with borderline disgust as Professor Kirke recounted the facts that he had seen the count give Lucy an apple (which, apparently, was symbolic) and that the count was, without a doubt, the best swimmer he had ever heard of.

"I would like to point out that Lucy and I," Edmund said, since it seemed nothing else would make these people realize that they'd made some sort of horrible mistake, "are not consorts. We're _friends_."

"I already pointed that out," Caspian said nonchalantly. "That has turned out to be rather a moot point."

"If you still do not believe," Ivy decided, "there is something we must show you." She nodded at Lilliandil. "Go on, they need to see it."

The star's daughter lifted her palm to the largest of the golden Aslan carvings and rubbed her fingers against the lines of his engraved mane. The design changed from the Lion to a sword, then the sword was real and Lilliandil was holding it (in its scabbard, of course), her fingers wrapped around it.

Solemnly, she presented the sword to Lucy.

The princess had read enough books to recognize it at once. "Rhindon! It…it was found?"

"We found it years ago," Coriakin said, unable to keep from grinning. "And we've kept it safe here for you. Don't draw it out now, though. The time is not right. The first time you draw Rhindon from its scabbard must be for a true-hearted, noble reason."

"I can't keep this," Lucy told them, awestruck, looking down at the sword now spread across her lap.

"It's yours," they insisted.

"Edmund can show you how to hide it under your floorboards," suggested Caspian, only half-joking.

"All right, supposing for a second that really is Rhindon," Edmund sighed, "maybe one of you could be so good as to explain exactly why Gumpas and Pug cared so much that Lucy's the next bearer of it? Why would they worry about some stupid legend?"

"Our folly, Edmund," said Lilliandil sadly, looking momentarily forlorn, "is that we didn't realize Gumpas and Pug's role, and its significance, in time. We had no reason to suspect them prior to this attempted kidnapping, or else my father would have never let them work here."

"Rest assured," Coriakin chimed in after his daughter, "they will never work here again. They're both getting the sack."

"They won't make it out of the school doors," Edmund said bitterly. "I'll draw that sword you suppose to be Rhindon right out of its scabbard and run them both through." If it hadn't been for their stupidity, Lucy would have never been outside and wouldn't have gotten her injury. Maugrim was a shrewd creature and would have never entered the school building itself.

The whole Rhindon Investigation Society went silent and stared at Edmund wide-eyed, completely aghast.

At first he thought it was because they were repelled by his sense of revenge or else didn't want him to physically harm Gumpas and Pug for some reason or other, but that turned out not to be the reason for their shock at all. What appalled them was that Edmund would consider drawing out Rhindon when he had no right to be doing such a thing.

"What is their role anyway?" Lucy asked, to turn their thoughts to other subjects besides the sacredness of High King Peter's sword for a moment.

"There is a group that works against this society." Rhince's face went red with anger as he spoke of them. "They call themselves the Order Of The Dryads; we now understand Pug and Gumpas both to be active members though the leader of that vile order remains anonymous still."

"Dryads," Lucy repeated, thinking it over. She tucked a piece of her hair behind one ear. "Because, in the stories, some of them resisted Peter initially, right?"

"Well remembered!" Professor Kirke smiled and pointed approvingly at her. "I knew she was smart."

Lucy fingered the scabbard of the sword. "I don't think I can do this. I'm not going to change anything, I've never wanted to. I don't have any problems with how my parents are already ruling Narnia. I don't even have ideas…Edmund's the one who always comes up with ways of making everything just. I always feel too sorry for both sides to come to a decision on any argument."

"It's all right that you're scared, Your Majesty," Caspian said consolingly. "But you will rise above it someday, just like Peter."

There were tears in Lucy's eyes; and Edmund recognized the stricken expression on her face with a mix of aggravation, sadness, and out-right anger: she believed them. Lucy believed every single word this secret society was telling her; she was lapping it all up. And yet, he couldn't be mad at her, not even a little bit. He could only pity her. They were scaring her without reason. He wanted to send everyone from the chamber and comfort her, and he almost did before it occurred to him that he had no position of power over this society. They wouldn't leave at his bidding. Besides, this was _their_ secret chamber, not his.

There seemed to be only one option, for he could not sit there and do nothing while endless silly tears ran down Lucy's face one after another. He had to protect her, somehow.

"That does it," Edmund decided, standing up and reaching back towards the couch to help Lucy up behind him. "I'm taking her out of here at once."

"Look, see here," Rhince began, "you can't…I mean, we haven't finished…we need more time to speak with her…"

"No," he said flatly, "you don't."

Caspian stood in his way while Ivy helped fasten Rhindon around Lucy's waist. The weight of the sword did not seem to bother her ankle, but rather to balance it out a bit.

"Caspian," Edmund ordered, as serious and dark as Lucy had ever seen him, "no more tonight. Lucy can't handle it."

" _She_ can't? Or _you_ can't, Edmund?" he asked pointedly.

"Look at her face," he insisted, frowning, reaching under Lucy's chin to lift her face upwards in Caspian's direction. "Does it _look_ like she can stand much more of this? She's exhausted. I'm taking her to her room, _now_."

Caspian nodded, giving in. "All right."

On the way back to her room, dazed and limping, holding onto Edmund's arm so tightly her knuckles had gone as white as snow, Lucy whispered, "Ed?"

"Yes?"

"You know," she croaked through her tears and a light case of the hiccups, "before you came to live at Cair Paravel and we played together all the time, I used to pretend Peter from the old stories was a real boy living in the castle, too; like an imaginary friend, sort of. I used to tell him things…secrets…" She paused, smiling a little at the memory. "I think that's why I hated the stories of his downfall so much, because he was real to me, and it was like reading about a close friend in trouble. I was upset when Professor Kirke assigned me to write about his end, but I think I understand now."

"Lu-" he tried to interject.

She bit her lower lip, released it, then added, "The professor wanted me to learn about it in-depth to protect me, didn't he? To keep me from making the same mistakes or something…But I don't think he did anything wrong-Peter, I mean-so how can I be the one to reset history?"

Edmund stopped walking and the heel of his left boot came down heavily, echoing in the corridor they stood still in the middle of. "Lucy, listen to me, none of that…you're not…Lu, don't try to be something just because they tell you have to be. And what happened tonight…" He lifted his hand as if to stroke the side of her face, but never actually made contact before bringing it down again. "I don't think it's fair that they're doing this to you."

"Tell me honestly, do you believe in it, even a little bit?" She looked up straight into his eyes.

"No, Lu, I don't."

The corridor was drafty. "I'm so cold."

"Then let's just hurry and get you to your room so you can rest for a bit."

"All right." She seemed so small and helpless, limping and trying not to start crying again; from being over-tired as much as shocked from what the Rhindon Investigation Society expected of her.

"Promise me you won't think any more about this for tonight," he said when they finally reached their destination, thankfully not running into Mrs. Macready on the way as they had both been secretly fearing they would. "You need rest."

It took all Lucy had to give her word (for she never gave it lightly), but she could see Edmund was in as much need of rest as she was, and knew instinctively that without her sincere promise, he would stay up all night, worrying about her all alone in her room, anxious and frightened.

"I promise."


	11. The Seductive Looking Glass Page

While keeping the alarming matter of what happened to Lucy the night of the ball a secret from her fellow pupils had been an easy enough concept in theory, it wasn't all that simple when put into practice.

It was rather akin to claiming there had been no carriage accidents as of lately while standing next to a pitiful wreck that was clearly a carriage in its previous existence.

Edmund had a single, large, extremely dark, black-and-blue bruise on his forehead from a lucky blow Maugrim had been able to deliver before first saying his final words and then dying. And Lucy's limp was an even more obvious problem.

Coriakin and his daughter could suggest Edmund cover the bruise with make-up during class-time until it healed all they wanted, but that would do nothing whatever to help hide the fact that Lucy couldn't walk straight from the other students; or even from the teachers that were not members of the Rhindon Investigation Society, for that matter.

They couldn't tell the truth. It wouldn't be safe, for one. And, for another, who would believe it? No one in their right minds would believe that Lucy had been first kidnapped by Gumpas and Pug and then attacked by a wolf who apparently used to work for the late White Witch. Only, without the truth, how could they explain that Gumpas and Pug would no longer be teachers there?

It took a fair amount of time (Lucy and Edmund missed all their morning classes because of how long it took), but finally it was Glozelle and Trumpkin who came up with a suitable plan; an official story for Lucy's limp. Lucy herself thought it was an out-right lie more than it was any kind of 'story', and she felt guilty agreeing to it, except that there was nothing else she could do.

The story was that Gumpas and Pug had unlawfully bought themselves an over-sized wild dog for a pet and had brought the creature onto school grounds without asking permission from the headmaster. When they saw Lucy in the corridor they at once took it up into their heads to show her their dog and led her outside to see it. The dog had gone mad and grabbed at Lucy's ankle savagely. Panicked and irresponsible, Gumpas and Pug had fled the scene, telling no one, leaving the princess to either be killed by the dog at once or else bleed to death. Edmund, feeling the sudden uncontrollable urge for a late-night stroll, had rushed outside, found her, killed the dog, and shouted for help until Rhince showed up and carried her into the headmaster's office to keep the matter discreet until Lucy was feeling well enough to tell everyone what had happened. So, Gumpas and Pug were being sent away for their carelessness in endangering the life of a student who also happened to be the daughter of Narnia's monarch.

The story, while not a word of it was true, did explain everything to a reasonable degree. Edmund thought it made Gumpas and Pug seem too borderline-innocent, as if their intentions had been good, but Lilliandil disagreed, pointing out that it showed them as despicable cowards, having no regard for school rules, and cold-hearted enough to forsake an injured young lady in her time of great need.

So, when the count and the princess finally showed their faces in the classroom for science lessons that afternoon, that was what they (or, more precisely, Edmund, as Lucy felt rather tongue-tied and could not get out the right words) prepared to tell their anxious peers.

Marjorie's hands flew to her mouth when she saw Edmund's forehead; and Jill, seated beside her, gasped, "There's something the matter with Lucy's foot, I think. She's walking on it all wrong!"

"You're late," Mr. Ketterley said, not seeming to notice or care about their unusual appearances as they entered. "I trust you naughty children have an excuse?"

Edmund frowned automatically. There was something so condensing about Andrew Ketterley which made him impossible to like, or even respect. His disregard for anything that was not instantly and obviously useful and practical, his apparent selfishness and stubbornness, his heartless manner of speaking about every given subject, and a few other characteristics, reminded Edmund-to a much lesser and not so very dangerous degree-of someone he'd known as a small child; and he despised the man for that. Furthermore, Andrew had once, after drinking too much brandy, even though he wasn't supposed to drink on the school grounds because of his habit of overindulgence, called Edmund, "my little man," which, needless to say, annoyed him tremendously.

Lucy reached out and handed Mr. Ketterley a note from Headmaster Coriakin stating that they had both been in his office all morning. "We were told to give you this."

Mr. Ketterley read the note over, looked somewhere between pacified and apathetic, and told them to be seated.

Neither Edmund nor Lucy really learned anything from the lesson that day, both greatly distracted.

Edmund's mind was wondering, by turn, why Andrew always rubbed his hands together like that, and what he was going to do about Lucy supposedly being the next High King Peter; there had to be some way to make her see reason, to make her realize it couldn't be true. Because, he knew her too well. Now that there was a reason behind Professor Kirke's assignment, Lucy would plunge into finding out as much about Peter's end as possible. They might get high marks on a well-written composition, but that hardly felt worth getting the poor girl all petrified and high-strung, thinking she had to fight evil or whatever.

As for Lucy, she was pondering over if Edmund really could be Susan in this generation or not. If she was Peter and he was Susan, did that mean there was supposed to be something more than mere friendship between them? She thought of what she had felt when they'd danced at the ball. But Edmund, whatever Professor Kirke said, didn't have much in common with Queen Susan of Narnia aside from his swimming skills. For one thing, Ed couldn't 'shoot worth a damn', as Lucy had once heard one of their archery tutors put his lack of obvious talent at that particular sport when he'd thought she wasn't listening, and Susan had been an expert archer. But, on the other hand, they were both sort of practical-minded and sensible to a fault, and Edmund _had_ given her that apple, so it wasn't too hard to see where the Rhindon Investigation Society was coming from…

"Miss Pevensie!" Mr. Ketterley's shinny eyes were focused on her. "Are you paying attention?"

"No, Sir," she admited.

Edmund almost slapped his forehead before he remembered the bruise and realized how much that would hurt. Why did Lucy have to be so honest? Anyone else would have lied and said yes, and then perhaps awkwardly tried to recite a lesson they hadn't actually heard a single word of.

"You, gel, will stay after class," Mr. Ketterley informed her. "I will have a word with you."

"Ooh," laughed Eustace, leaning back in his seat to make faces at the princess. He mouthed, quite snottily, "You're in trouble…"

Edmund stuck out his tongue at his roommate in Lucy's defense.

"Mr. Ketterley!" Eustace shouted out, fully prepared to complain about Edmund 'disrespecting him'.

But the science teacher ignored his shrill cry, circling something on an 'elements chart' displayed at the front of the room with black ink, and the blighter soon realized he was missing out on note-taking opportunities galore as the lesson was progressing, and as he refused to let his marks take a hit, he forgot about the count of the Western Marsh for the time being.

When the lesson was over, Lucy, of course, had to stay behind. Edmund tried to stay behind with her, except Mr. Ketterley wouldn't let him, insisting he leave the room as Lucy's 'lack of attention in class' had nothing to do with him. He thought this most unfair, as he himself had paid just as little attention as his companion, if not less. However, as there was nothing he could do, he simply whispered shortly to her that if Mr. Ketterley (who he did not trust) tried anything like Gumpas and Pug had she should scream out at the top of her voice and he, waiting just outside the door, would rush in and help her.

In all honestly, Edmund didn't really believe that Mr. Ketterley was a member of the Order of the Dryads; he suspected him of something entirely different, not to mention completely unconnected to what the Rhindon Investigation Society were supposedly fighting against. Still, as he had no proof either way, it was better safe than sorry. Deep down, part of Edmund had been feeling sort of guilty because of having done nothing after seeing how Pug and Gumpas looked at Lucy that day at the lake. Did that make what had happened maybe a little bit his own fault? Could he have prevented that if he'd reported his discomfort regarding those two maybe to Professor Kirke-since he was the most trustworthy out of the teachers here?

Lucy listened to Mr. Ketterley go on and on about how he didn't like teaching to begin with and, thus, liked it even less when his pupils got it in their heads to make it difficult for him. He made a very self-righteous speech that, in short, implied he thought himself far more important than anyone else at the school and wished to be treated accordingly. Although she wouldn't have said so out loud, Lucy thought he was out-right _whining_ to her; any other teacher in the building-aside from Gumpas and Pug, of course-would have been firm yet attempted to be fair in his criticism all the same. Andrew Ketterley didn't even punish her by giving her extra night-work or threatening to send her to the Headmaster's office if she kept not paying attention in the future.

Finally, the man got distracted and told her he was thirsty and would be back in a few moments. He said she had better still be there when he returned, but he didn't say it very threateningly.

Most students, upon seeing that expression on their teacher's face, would have gathered that he didn't mean he was going to get himself a drink of _water_ , and would have just left in hopes that the man would be tight as anything when he returned and not even remember that he was supposed to be giving a lecture to a pupil. But Lucy was an innocent and would have never, unless she sensed true physical danger to herself, disobeyed an authority figure, so she stayed.

The only problem was that she was a little bored and restless just sitting there. In the end, she decided she had to stand and move around a little or else her hurt ankle would fall asleep and sting terribly for the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, while moving about, she accidentally banged her hip into the side of Mr. Ketterley's desk, dislodging a loose draw at the bottom.

It would have never occurred to her to rummage through his things, only she saw that there was a large, very expensive-looking, book there (the kind that closes with a leather clasp), and couldn't help herself.

I'll just take one quick look, she thought, figuring that she might have time to put it back before Mr. Ketterley returned.

Bending down, she lifted the book out of the draw and placed it on the desk.

The tome was brown with black writing on the front, and gold-leaf on the spine and on the edge of all the pages (all of which were made of the very strongest, most extravagant paper).

The title made no sense, appearing to be naught but a jumble of nonsense words; or else, it was in a language she did not know. Certainly it wasn't Lantern Waste French, nor old or modern Narnian. And it wasn't Ettinsmoor-Latin, either; for it had been, she could have recognized the letters and read them easily.

The clasp wouldn't come undone, much to Lucy's now deepening disappointment.

Lifting her fingers up from the book, she realized, surprised she hadn't earlier, that they were covered with dust. The tome was remarkably dusty. Andrew Ketterley really ought to be ashamed for keeping such an apparently fine book in so neglectful a state!

Without really thinking about it, Lucy took a deep breath and blew off the layer of dry, grimy dust.

As if by magic (and perhaps it truly was), the letters twisted into something recognizable and she could make out the title at last: _The Book of Incantations_.

'Incantations': what did _that_ mean? It was the Lantern Waste French word for it, and while Edmund probably would have known what it meant at once, Lucy didn't. She knew she'd seen the word before, and known it before, but as of right then, its meaning alluded her.

She was able to open the clasp now, and she lifted the great cover. There was no title page; but she supposed the book didn't really need one.

The first readable page surprised her, though. It was something about taking a swarm of bees. Lucy had no notion of taking a swarm of any sort of insect and she found it odd that anyone else would. Where exactly was the purpose in that? Not even someone as clueless as Andrew Ketterley could possibly have use for a whole swarm of bees. Unless he intended to open a honey shop or something of that nature. But he didn't strike Lucy as a 'honey shop' sort of person. Well, at least the picture of the bright, golden bees was extremely pretty if nothing else.

She turned the page. It claimed to be a cure for warts. According to the writing, you had to wash your hands in a silver basin in the light of a new moon. Which, really, explained why everyone couldn't rid themselves of warts just for the asking; because, honestly, how many people out there had basins of real silver at their disposal? Lucy did, but she was a princess. It was a moot point, also, as she didn't actually have any warts.

Laughing, she turned the page again.

Next was a whole mess of things she would have never imagined anyone would have put into a published book. Poems that claimed to make you forget and/or remember things. How could a poem help a person remember anything important? She loved poetry, but this was just plain silly. And the poems weren't even very nice; their only strong point was that they rhymed, and that wasn't saying much.

The next 'poem' she came across was a very little bit nicer than the previous ones had been, and she felt a funny urge to read it aloud.

Well, why not? She thought. Mr. Ketterley hasn't returned yet, and no one will over-hear if I read it nice and soft-like.

"With these words," she recited, very prettily in a low, low voice, "your tongue most sew, for all around there…to be snow…"

The page she was looking down at was ebony black, but out of nowhere a speck of white appeared on it. It had a distinctive pattern, not like a soap-flake or piece of lint; it was a snowflake, pure and true.

"Where did that come from?" Lucy glanced at the window.

Was it snowing outside? No. And the window was closed, regardless. Yet, somehow or other, the room was now filling with beautiful, fresh, crisp white snow.

It was so splendid that she looked up and smiled at the flakes in awe, not even noticing how cold she was beginning to feel.

The snow had refreshed her spirit to a lovely high, but as she began to come down from that high, the princess sensed something amiss. There was something seriously the matter with this odd poetry book, something she didn't like. It had to do with the word 'incantations' and its meaning, she was fairly certain.

The next page was different. It was grainy and had a life-like sort of picture about it, not quite like a painting, yet not quite like watching something happen directly in front of you. The edges of the page were blurry while the rest was clear like crystal, save that some of the colours seemed either too bright or too dull and sort of hurt Lucy's eyes.

To her utter shock, she saw Marjorie sitting in a rocking-chair in her dorm room, looking a little sad and tired.

"Marjorie!" she started to say cheerfully, before she realized her friend could not hear nor see her.

Something told Lucy instinctively that this was happening right now; Marjorie was skipping whatever class she was supposed to be in at the moment, taking a bit of a break.

Well, she supposed the bruise on Edmund's forehead had jarred the poor girl a little, knowing how fond Marjorie was of him.

But how could something happening right then be in that book?

She should have averted her eyes, for the princess knew eavesdropping was wrong; but was it really eavesdropping to look at a book? That wasn't the same thing, was it? No, it was more akin to reading. That had to be right. It _sounded_ right, at any rate. Or maybe she was only trying to convince herself it was right because she was curious and wanted to see what was happening.

Suddenly, Anne Featherstone was there, too, going through her closet, looking prim.

Marjorie sighed.

Anne turned to look at her. "Are you all right?"

Lucy could have been knocked over with a feather! Had Anne actually said something _kind_? Was she really worried about Marjorie? Perhaps there truly _was_ a first time for everything.

"No," said Marjorie. Then, hastily, "I mean, yes, I'm fine; thanks."

Anne shook her head. "No, you're not."

"I'm not?" Marjorie blinked at her.

"You're angry with me, aren't you?" Anne looked almost pitiful for about half a second.

"Angry?" Marjorie gasped, wide-eyed. "With you?"

"I knew it. Well, I know we got off on the wrong foot."

"Y-yes," Marjorie answered shakily; "I suppose we did. Why?"

"I know I was a little standoffish when you first came here, am I right?"

Lucy frowned and would have snapped, "Yes, if 'standoffish' were a word meaning 'snobbish, Aslan-insulting brat'," if Anne could have heard her.

As she clearly couldn't, though, Lucy just kept on listening, wishing Marjorie would grow a back-bone and tell Anne off, but strongly doubting her nervous friend would do anything of the sort.

"A little," agreed Marjorie.

"Well, I've decided to make it up to you," Anne announced, smiling.

Marjorie's whole face lit up. "Really? I mean, you don't have to…"

"Yes, I do." Anne held up one of her hands like she was about to swear on scout's honour or something. "I've been beastly. And I think I know just what to do about being friends now."

Marjorie was beaming uncontrollably; Anne had just said they were 'friends'!

"I'm going to let you try on my new hat."

"Not the one with mint-green velvet and polar bear fur?" Marjorie gasped, her eyes shinning.

"That's the one," Anne told her, nodding.

"I couldn't-" Marjorie began modestly, overcome with gratitude.

Anne was holding out the hat to her now. "I insist."

"All right, then." She took the hat and put it on, glancing into the nearest mirror. "Well, it looks nicer on you."

"Pshaw," laughed Anne. "That isn't true at all. You ought to get a hat like that; green and white suits you."

What do you want, Anne? Lucy wondered. Innocent-minded as she was, it seemed unlikely Anne was doing this out of the goodness of her heart. Either the Featherstone girl wanted something from Marjorie, or she was seriously bipolar, or else had a twin sister who was her opposite in every way but shared her name and closet.

"You really think so?" asked Marjorie, glancing over her shoulder at Anne's expression, wondering if the girl was teasing her.

"Yes, I do." She grinned widely, then looked very thoughtful. "Hey, I just had the most brilliant idea!"

"What is it?" Marjorie smiled back expectantly.

"The best way I can prove we're really friends now."

"Oh, loaning me the hat was nice enough…"

"No it wasn't, I've just thought of something better."

"What is it?" Marjorie couldn't help being profoundly interested. Was Anne going to let her try on a dress to go _with_ the hat?

"You like Edmund Pevensie, don't you?"

Marjorie blushed. "Yes."

Lucy felt her whole body tense up unexpectedly.

"So if somebody-say, a good friend-was to find out if he liked you in return," Anne mused, "you could maybe talk to him about courting or something, couldn't you?"

"Oh, I couldn't," stammered Marjorie.

"Not even if you knew he liked you?"

"Does he?"

"That's what I'm going to try to find out, you half-wit!" snapped Anne, getting frustrated and nearly giving herself away. "Erm, sorry. I've been under some stress," she amended. "What I meant was, I don't know yet, but I suppose he does. Soon I'll be able to tell you for sure."

"Oh," said Marjorie.

"Is that all you have to say?"

"It's perfectly lovely of you," she told her, "but even so, I don't think I could talk to him…I'd get so…so…flustered…"

"Hmm…" Anne pretended to be perplexed. "I say! I think I've got it now, Marjorie."

"Have you?"

"Yes indeed!"

"Yes?"

"Supposing he likes you, all you would have to do is ask Lucy Pevensie to speak with him on your behalf."

"Ask Lucy?" Marjorie repeated, sounding kind of dense and parrot-like.

Anne raised a fair brow at her. "And why not? You've been so taken up with her this term and everything."

"Don't know what you mean by taken up," Marjorie told her.

"Yes, you do," said Anne. "You're positively crazy about her. You've been friends since arriving here."

"Well, yes, that's true enough. She's a good kid in her way, isn't she?"

Lucy half wanted to smack Marjorie for trying to sound so grown-up in front of Anne. She decided not to hold a grudge, however, knowing Marjorie did love her and was only weak because of her admiration of Anne Featherstone.

"Exactly," Anne went on. "So it should be rather simple. That's what friends do for each other. I would speak to Edmund for you myself, but I'm not so close to him as she is. Given, finding out whether he likes you, that I should be able to do no problem. But talking directly to him for you, that'll be easier for Lucy, don't you think?"

"Well, of course it would!" Marjorie agreed, starting to feel excited now.

"She'll do it for you, won't she?"

"Yeah, I suppose."

"You _suppose_? Don't you know it? _I_ would. And I haven't been your friend for as long, you will recall…"

Marjorie nodded happily. "That's right. Of course she will."

"Very well, that's settled then. Think of it as a peace offering between us."

I don't see you giving any of your 'peace offerings' to me or Jill, thought Lucy bitterly, and you insulted _us_ , too.

And wasn't that a bit rude of Marjorie to think that Lucy would speak to Edmund for her? Suddenly Lucy felt a little sick. Because it wasn't rude. It was what friends were supposed to do for each other. And if Edmund liked her…( _did_ he like Marjorie?)…of course Lucy would be expected to speak to him for her friend's sake.

Not so very long ago, the idea wouldn't have bothered her in the least. She could speak to Edmund about nearly everything, and she would have wanted both of her friends to be happy. The problem was, although their happiness was as important to her as ever, after what she'd felt at the ball, she wasn't sure she could go through with something like that.

Afterwards, Lucy was never sure if the next scene was something the book-with its own agenda-had decided to taunt her with or if she simply imagined it in her mind's eye.

It was like this: she and Edmund were in her room, sitting near the hearth, working on that composition regarding High King Peter's end, and she opened her mouth to speak to him for Marjorie, and instead, all that came out was, "I love you, I love you, I love you!"

She shook her head and she was back watching Marjorie and Anne chattering away like old pals, making plans. Lucy wanted to hear no more of it.

It was nonsense and she felt stupid as anything, but a single big tear (strangely angry), rolled down her face and landed on the page with a fat-sounding _plop_.

Her nose was red and all the snow piled up in the room was beginning to make her feel chilled, but as soon as Lucy saw the next page, she went from numb to hot all over to out-right enchanted.

The page depicted a beautiful round looking-glass on one page, and the words, _an infallible spell to make beautiful she who uttereth it as she has long wished to be_ , were scrawled in shimmering silvery-gold script on the opposite.

Lucy peered down into the looking-glass on the page and saw something extraordinary happen.

First, it was merely her usual reflection staring back at her, then her face disappeared and the image in the looking-glass frame became a portrait that was clearly a depiction of Queen Susan, consort of High King Peter of Narnia.

The portrait blazed and came suddenly to life. The great queen turned her head and looked directly at Lucy. As the two young woman, one a legendary beauty, one a princess who thought herself painfully plain, gazed at each other through the book, there was the sound of something clicking-like a trap snapping shut.

Susan's face in the looking-glass began to change; it merged with that of Lucy's until the girl starting back at the Narnian Princess was not Susan at all but, rather, Lucy herself possessing Susan's kind of beauty instead of her own, which she had never really seen to begin with and did not actually miss very much now.

She reached up and touched her face. Her fingers looked the same outside of the book's looking-glass, but in the book they were so _pretty_ …as was her face…

"I'm beautiful," Lucy murmured, tearing her eyes away, dazzled.

So _that_ was how she would look if she were beautiful. Never had she imagined such improvement; never had she envisioned herself prettier than anyone she had ever seen before, with the sole exceptions of Lilliandil and Ivy; who were a star and a god's daughter anyway and, as such, did not subscribe to the same levels of beauty as mere mortals.

"No…" said Lucy shakily, trying to free herself from the trap she felt her whole soul falling into at a disturbingly fast speed.

The trap was long shut, but she'd push it back open if she had to. For now she remembered what Incantations meant. It was the words, 'infallible spell' that brought the meaning back to her; it wasn't good.

It was black magic, witchcraft.

That's what the book was: a book of spells. That's what Andrew Ketterley was; a secret magician. And she had been reading his magic book, _using_ it! She felt sick to her stomach.

All this time Lucy had been seemingly innocently dappling in something she saw now she had no control over, no understanding of, and no business with. Aslan would be very displeased. She wanted to cry. She hadn't known…she hadn't meant to…she wished she hadn't touched the book to begin with.

She would close it now, she had to. But before she could will herself to do just that, she found herself pondering over if she ought to report Mr. Ketterley to Headmaster Coriakin. True, he was no 'dryad', but he was dabbling in something wicked. But, then, what had she herself just been doing? Did that make her a witch? She'd cast a spell that made it snow, and she'd listened to what her friend was saying about her using magic. No, no, she was no witch; she knew she wasn't. It was an honest mistake. She would take the book to Coriakin right this moment.

And she would have, if only she hadn't looked down into that blasted looking-glass again. The trap was pressing in on her; she wasn't out yet. There was her beautiful, Susan-equivalent face staring up at her.

She wanted to be beautiful, but it wasn't worth doing something like this; not worth knowingly chanting a spell.

The looking-glass clouded.

It cleared and was then showing Susan and Lucy (with her regular face) standing side by side. It was a sad comparison, Lucy thought darkly. She wished the book would stop it already, or at least that her hands would obey her and slam the thing shut. But neither wish was granted. The princess kept looking.

One minute she was almost out, the next she was hesitating-teetering on the edge-again. She nearly won, but the looking-glass seemed to know everything she desired, and it tormented her. It showed her getting admiration from her classmates, a thing she had never even thought she wanted or cared about up till then. It showed her walking gracefully, her new limp gone as if it never was.

And for the first time she wondered if her new way of walking thanks to that wolf-bite had made her even _less_ attractive than before.

"I don't care," Lucy gulped, swallowing as hard as she could manage. "I don't care. I don't want it…any of it…"

The next image was like a slap across her face. It showed her walking out of the classroom, utterly beautiful, moving as perfectly straight as a ballerina, and Edmund standing there, catching sight of her.

His eyes were wider than she had ever seen them before, and he reached out, gingerly, almost as if he were scared to touch her, and placed two of his fingers on her left cheek.

"What happened?" he asked her, looking as if _he_ were the one under a spell. "You're so beautiful…"

Maybe _he_ was worth it. And no one would know how it happened. Marjorie would be angry that the object of her affections was suddenly fascinated with his best friend who had become absurdly beautiful without any warning. She didn't want to hurt Marjorie, of course; to sacrifice one friend in hopes of making another fall in love with her wasn't right. Only, how could Marjorie even stay upset with her when she looked like that? In her beautiful state she was even more comely than Anne Featherstone; Marjorie would _have_ to forgive her. And if Edmund had any misgivings about his best friend changing her face for whatever reason, he would forgive her, too.

Lucy looked back at the words of the spell. They jumped from their page and gathered themselves onto the looking-glass page, looking like specks of fairy-dust in the shape of tiny letters.

The looking-glass glowed brightly; it was so warm and inviting.

She opened her mouth to say the words glowing from the glass but nothing would come out.

And then the words were backwards, like when you hold a book up to a mirror and you can't read the reflection.

There was a roaring in Lucy's ears. She still knew she was making a bad decision, that she wasn't herself at this moment in time.

This wasn't her, these broken voices in her head telling her to do it. That roaring, so Lion-like, was extremely loud…it was over-powering all of the voices, including the one she knew was her own former good-sense, desperate to get her attention before it was too late.

Inhaling sharply, Lucy grabbed the inner edge of the page, ripped it right out of the book, and hastily folded it up.

She couldn't think clearly in this room, not now. But later…later she might reconsider.

The trap was caught in the half-way point, hovering in mid-air.

She exhaled and stuffed the book back into the draw where she'd found it. (She was thinking she wasn't going to tell Headmaster Coriakin right away after all; she was confused, in need of more time to think about it.)

"Lucy?"

The door began to crack open and the snow started vanishing rapidly.

By the time Edmund entered the room, his expression both concerned and cross, it was all gone except for a few scattered white flakes in Lucy's hair and a small puddle of ice-water in one of her boots.

"I don't think Mr. Ketterley is coming back," he told her. "Can we please just go now? We've missed more than half of whatever our next class was."

"Yes," said Lucy, trembling as she limped over to him.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing whatever." For the first time in her life the lie came effortlessly.

"You look different."

Lucy's hand flew to the side of her face automatically. Had she said the spell without realizing it?

"Your face is flustered and there's all these little white things in your hair."

Oh. So that was all. She wasn't beautiful or anything. All right, then. Time for the next class.

"I'm fine, really."

"Lu, you should have come out a long time ago," he said, a little harshly. "You know I would have covered for you if Mr. Ketterley said anything."

Her conscience pricked her. "I've kept you waiting outside the door all this time!"

"Well, yes, you have," he said shortly. "Just don't do it again. Let's go."

"Edmund," she said softly as he helped her over the threshold of the classroom door and out into the corridor, "if something happened to my face and it was… _different_ …would you mind very much?"

His forehead crinkled. "You mean if you were burned by acid or something?"

"No, not like that." She shook her head tiredly. "Never mind."

"Very well, Lu."

"What do you think of spells?"

"Of spells?" he repeated.

"Yeah, like magic and all that."

"It's either rot or vile," he said flatly.

"Do you know anything about it?"

He stopped in his tracks. "Has Caspian been saying nonsense about me being a witch's servant again? Because if he has…"

"No, no." Lucy waved that off. "Of course not. That isn't what I meant at all."

There is no telling where the conversation would have gone from there, because it was cut off.

Gumpas, having forgotten a pair of shoes and an ugly neck-chain belonging to him in his small former office, had returned to retrieve these items in spite of being banded from the school-grounds.

He passed by Lucy and Edmund in the corridor at that very moment, and Edmund felt his blood boiling.

"Ed…" Lucy gripped her best friend's shoulder tightly.

"Please, please let me hit him," Edmund begged her through gritted teeth.

"No!" She didn't want them to get into a fight and Edmund get hurt. "Do let's get on. You _said_ we were late for class."

He agreed to leave Gumpas alone, but how bitterly it cost him was written all over his strained, furious face. And he didn't speak again (not even to Lucy) for nearly an hour.


	12. An Afternoon In the Village

It is a funny truth that one can take a dream seriously when in the midst of it, but, upon waking, will usually find it to be the most unlikely, laughable, absurd thing ever; complete rot.

Such was the case with Edmund one night when he was asleep in his hammock. He was used enough to having nightmares that jarred him, but odd dreams that did not have any past significance and were not actually particularly frightening were rather rare occurrences for him.

All the same, that night he _did_ dream oddly. He dreamt he was on a great ship with a dragon-tail-shaped stern, sitting on the deck (not the poop-deck, the one _below_ it), a long broad-sword covered in dirt and dried mud, and grime and barnacles, and Aslan knew what else, spread across his lap.

Edmund, seeing nothing else for it, decided to get to work on cleaning the thing up a bit. He worked with a dagger and pocketknife (mostly the pocketknife, as the dagger proved borderline useless for so careful a task) at peeling off the thicker pieces of junk that clumped together. It was extremely slow-going, but he kept at it diligently and did not become even the least bit frustrated or bored in the process. His pocketknife was broken in the end, though he succeeded otherwise.

Soon all that was left was to polish the sword. It was clearly a fine one, he now saw, and was even starting to feel a strange thrill of excitement, thinking of how grand it would look, what fun it would be to practice his fencing with, when it was fully restored.

But, when the gleaming thing rested, practically as good as new, on his lap, he nearly jumped out of his skin with surprise. This was no ordinary old broad-sword: it was Rhindon!

As if for an explanation, he looked across the deck to where a girl with the sweetest smile he'd ever known was sitting on a wooden crate between two water-barrels, mending a seam in a partially torn vest of soft brown leather.

She looked at peace, this girl, with her task and with the world. And when she glanced up at him, still smiling kindly, he felt his heart flutter and the tips of his fingers seemed to lose all feeling.

He rose from his place, walked over to her, and offered her Rhindon, hilt first.

"No," she said softly, in a familiar voice that made him realize that the girl was none other than Lucy, his best friend, and he wondered why he hadn't noticed till that very moment that the peaceful sewing lass he was so enamored with and Lucy were the same person. "It's yours, Edmund."

That didn't sound right. Since when was he supposed to have Rhindon? Had not that bizarre society been horrified at the notion of his using it? And now, here was Lucy telling him to keep it. Yet, somehow, at least in the dream (though he didn't know at that exact point in time that it was a dream), it made sense. She was quite right; it was _his_ sword.

Why, there was the scabbard, tied to his belt! How could he not have noticed that before?

Taken aback, he slipped Rhindon into the scabbard, then stretched out his hand, offering to help Lucy to her feet.

She gladly accepted and placed her hand in his.

As if the world were moving in slow-motion, he watched his own fingers curl around her palm and felt himself tighten his grip ever so slightly in the second between when she was sitting and when she was standing, as if some part of him was just a little bit afraid of letting go too soon, causing her to fall.

Edmund was facing Lucy, his eyes and mind focused firmly on her and only her, so he was a little stunned to see, as he turned round, that practically everyone he knew was on the ship as well, standing on deck behind them.

There was King Frank and Queen Helen, Lucy's chambermaids, all of their school peers-including Jill Pole, Eustace Scrubb, and Marjorie Preston-and teachers not part of the Rhindon Investigation Society, as well as dozens of courtiers the count knew by face but not each by name, all staring at them expectedly. There was not a single sad eye in this group, they all looked so happy to see him and Lucy for some unexplained reason.

"Edmund, look!" Lucy poked him lightly on the arm and pointed up at the poop-deck, where the entire Rhindon Investigation Society stood, with the sole exception of the black dwarf Nikabrik, who was nowhere to be seen.

Caspian left the other members and, descending on the poop-deck's staircase, stopped about mid-way down and cried out, "Behold! Edmund the Just and Lucy the Valiant: High King and Queen of Narnia!"

The Rhindon investigation Society broke into an applause, and everyone on the deck lowered their heads and bowed to them unanimously.

In the distance, a sailor, his head also lowered respectfully, played a lovely soft tune on a violin in their honour; and, between the sounds of the breaking waves below the ship, Edmund could hear mermaids singing.

Lucy laughed merrily and Edmund slipped one of his arms around her shoulders, pulling her close to him.

The whole of Narnia, all aboard this mysterious ship, looked on with pleasure and approval.

Whatever else it had been, it certainly wasn't a nightmare; parts of it were actually pleasant and left Edmund feeling a strange longing for he wasn't quite sure what mixed with a vague sense of satisfaction and contentment.

And that was why, when Professor Kirke pulled him aside in an empty corridor later that day and asked, "Have the nightmares started yet?" he replied that he hadn't had any nightmares.

"No, no," said Professor Kirke, shaking his head and lowering his voice, which was already hardly over a light whisper. "I didn't mean _you_ , Edmund, I meant Lucy."

"Lucy?" he repeated, furrowing his brow. "Lucy doesn't have nightmares; at least, not often, and not that she mentions."

"Well, we don't know for certain, but there is some speculation-a theory more than a proven fact-that when the next High King Peter in line is informed of their destiny, believes it, and is highly aware of it, they may begin to suffer from nightmares."

Edmund didn't believe in any of this rubbish himself, but just for curiosity's sake, he asked, "Why?"

"There is evil in the world," explained Professor Kirke, his tone slightly darker. "The forces of evil do not want the enlightenment Peter's successor could potentially bring. Such forces come from within as much as from without…it can be anything, take any form…so we were concerned about Lucy. She's a sensitive girl, and we were worried about frightening the poor child."

At this, Edmund couldn't help cocking his head and snipping sarcastically, "It's a little late for you to worry about _now_ , isn't it? After telling her all that stuff the night of the ball."

Professor Kirke shook his head again, not prepared to argue. "Good day, Edmund. I shall see you later in class, doubtless."

He had offended his favorite professor with his sarcasm, he was fairly certain of that, but he didn't feel terribly guilty, still upset that Digory had helped put all that nonsense into Lucy's head in the first place. _Now_ they were worried about scaring her? Well, they really should have thought of that long before they told her those stupid fairy-stories about her being the next Peter; even supposing the high king really was her ancestor, which was probably the only thing they had said that wasn't impossible, that didn't meant she was supposed to take up his place and lead Narnia into a new Golden Age. What rubbish!

However, rubbish or not, sometime the afternoon of the following day, when Headmaster Coriakin said that Edmund and Lucy could take one of the school's horses out into a village in an area of the Lantern Waste that had a denser population and buy a few groceries for the school kitchen as well as a few other small supplies they were going to be running short on soon if they didn't restock, the count found himself inquiring as to her nightly dreams.

"No," replied Lucy truthfully as her best friend helped her down from the back of the non-talking dapple-gray horse who's halter he had just fastened to an iron loop hanging from a wall at the edge of the village. "I haven't had any bad dreams lately."

Edmund sighed, surprised to find he was a little relieved in spite of himself. He also took this information from Lucy to signify that his assumption regarding the complete insanity of the Rhindon Investigation Society was being continually proven true. Of course, they _had_ said the thing about the next high king suffering from night-terrors was just a theory, but still.

For the next couple of hours neither Edmund nor Lucy thought or spoke any further of the Rhindon Investigation Society; both enjoying each other's company as they walked through the village, talking and joking as openly as they had during their days back at Cair Paravel, stopping only to look at this or that thing, or to buy something Coriakin would expect them to return with, too much to bother with something that suddenly felt quite unimportant in comparison.

There was plenty to look at. Part of the village was graced with a large, open-air market, while the other half was filled with shops and other important locations within spacey, broadly arched stone buildings.

In the open-air market they brought fresh fruit, and Lucy laughed at a trick a talking monkey with a glossy black tail and a merry little face with snow-coloured fur all around his bright blue eyes played on them. Edmund did not initially find the monkey so very amusing, but Lucy's laughter was contagious and, in the end, he had to concede that it had indeed been rather funny. They'd also meant to buy several vegetables Coriakin had specified, but the only vegetable the market was carrying that day were turnips, so they had to make do.

Within the stone buildings they found merchants selling anything from soap to knives to fabric to make dresses with. Edmund let Lucy linger a bit amongst the fabrics, going ahead with Coriakin's list and coming back for her a few minutes later. She must have seen some things she liked, but, unlike Marjorie Preston, wasn't naturally inclined to spend long quantities of time speaking of potential clothing to Edmund. He may have been her best friend, but he was male and as such couldn't understand such things and would have been rather at a loss for most of a conversation like that, though she was sure he wouldn't have said so aloud. Besides, none of the fabrics she saw were half so nice as the ball-gown he'd had made for her had been before that horrid wolf tore it up; and she _did_ tell Edmund that much, and it seemed, brief mention of Maugrim put aside, to make him feel good. He liked knowing he had done something right.

"Look," said Lucy as they left the low, slightly shadowy building that sold papers and quills and, stepping out into the bright sunlight again, came across a beautiful, glittering clear crystal arch that had twinkling ivy growing all around it. "That's pretty."

"I've seen something like it before," said Edmund, trying to remember where.

"So have I, now that I think of it," mused Lucy, blinking at the modest limestone building the pretty arch extended into.

It was clearly very old; little chunks of the crystal arch (mostly under the places the ivy hid, luckily) were chipped away; and while the parts of the building that stood seemed like they would keep on standing for centuries to come, there were a few sections that had crumpled-in walls or roofs. Those areas were clearly out of use, though. Whereas the rest of it had to serve some purpose for the village not to have it torn down and removed.

"I say, Lu!" the count exclaimed at last; "I know where we've seen it."

"Where?"

"There's a picture of it in _Myths and Legends of the Golden Age_."

"There is!" Lucy recalled happily. "I think I remember now. It must've had some important significance back in the olden days."

"Well, I suppose we ought to look inside?" Edmund offered, taking a step closer to the arch.

"Have we got time?" she asked, knowing Headmaster Coriakin would expect them back at the school sooner or later.

"Of course we have." Simply because he knew Lucy wanted to see it, despite the fact that he was less than thrilled that yet another thing to do with the blasted fabled Golden Age had come up into their lives, Edmund would have told her they had plenty of time even if they didn't. As it was, however, they actually did have more than enough time, so all was well in that regard.

Once they were through the arch and in the building itself, they found themselves on a long dusty carpet that had probably been vividly coloured many decades ago when it was first made but had faded into something dull since then.

The carpet went only one way, directly through the part of the building that wasn't collapsed, so they stuck to its path.

When the path came to a stop at a dark wall of reddish-brown stone, they found themselves face to face with a female centaur who had curly golden hair and ashen-coloured eyes, her horse-half palomino.

She was polishing a decorative shield with Aslan's face carved into the silver, but she put it down when she saw them approaching.

"Are you here to be married?" she asked, looking as if she expected the answer to be yes.

Edmund furrowed his brow. "No."

Lucy shook her head, wondering why the centaur had assumed that.

"Oh, pity," said the centaur, her automatic smile waning a bit. "Tis a shame. I thought, you both coming in here together as you did…Ah, well, honest mistake, you understand. No offence, I hope?"

"No, of course not," said Lucy, liking the centaur very much, as she seemed to be a friendly sort of person. "But, if you don't mind my asking, what is this place? I've seen a picture of it before, in a book about the Golden Age of Narnia, but I can't remember what it was for."

The centaur tossed back her fair curls and laughed a little. "That explains it."

"Explains what?" asked Edmund.

"Well," she said, scrapping one hoof against the edge of the carpet. "This is a place where marriages are preformed in an old fashioned manner, using local traditions not commonly bothered with these days. But, I assure you, it's legal.

"We mostly get elopements. Generally, people who plan their weddings don't like to have them in a place that barely seats anyone and is run down.

"We're quite famous, however, and no joke. Some folklore actually holds that High King Peter and Queen Susan were married here, in the old Lantern Waste tradition, a full month before they were supposed to be married back at the Court of Cair Paravel. Those stories say they had a wedding there, too, in the end, no one knowing they were already wedded."

"I suppose that's why this place is in your book, Lu," Edmund told his friend.

Lucy didn't reply; she was too busy finishing looking around, taking everything in.

On the wall to her left there was a portrait that was supposed to be of King Peter and Queen Susan from the old stories, but it was a very somber portrayal of them; their faces were both painted as serious and unmoved as stain-glass depictions of saints in the very grimmest of churches.

In the far corner, behind the centaur, there was a cast-iron-and-polished-glass model, maybe three feet high, of _The Lamppost_ , currently unlit. Lucy wondered if it served a purpose or if it was merely an out-of-the-way decoration.

Glancing back from the lamppost model to the portrait, Lucy saw the straight, intense line that was Queen Susan's mouth turn up into a small, knowing half-smile.

"Edmund!" She grabbed his arm.

"What is it, Lu?"

"Look!" She pointed up at the portrait.

Both Edmund and the lady-centaur looked, but there was nothing for them to see, just an ordinary grim-set portrait of a king and queen.

"Lu?"

"It…it was different a moment ago," she fumbled awkwardly, remembering how when Coriakin had unrolled that map on her first day at the school, the Peter on its border had nodded at her only no one else had seen it happen. This strange occurrence, she thought, was very like that one.

"I think the dusty-air of this place is getting to you," Edmund declared flatly, grabbing onto Lucy's wrist and giving a light tug. "It's time we started heading back to where we left the horse anyhow. Come on, Lucy, fresh air will do you good."

But Lucy, although she did follow him out after bidding the friendly centaur goodbye, didn't let the matter drop so easily as she might have. She even mentioned Coriakin's map, insisting that she wasn't crazy or imagining things.

He seemed disinclined to believe her, but when the centaur was completely out of ear-shot, he asked, "Why did I see anything?"

"You believe me?" Lucy stopped walking.

Edmund sighed. "You've never really lied to me before," he said sort of quietly. "Disbelieving you might make me end up looking pretty stupid."

"And yet…" Lucy mulled, confused, "you don't really think…I mean, could this be part of what the Rhindon Investigation Society meant?"

"Honestly, Lu, what does a moving painting have to do with you being the supposed successor of a fictional leader?"

Lucy frowned. "He wasn't fictional, Edmund."

"And you know that _how_?"

They began walking again, only their pace was brisker now.

"I just know," said Lucy with conviction.

"Let me get this straight," Edmund grumped, turning half-way around and looking straight at her in a very no-nonsense manner. "I ask how by the Lion's mane you can possibly think any of this is real, to which your reply is, and I quote: 'I just know'?"

"Edmund, either you believe me or you don't."

"Hang it all, you don't understand." He shook his head. "I believe _you_ , of course. I believe _something_ is going on, something we don't understand. But I think the Rhindon Investigation Society are all out of their minds."

"They were in possession of Rhindon," she protested, clutching the groceries she carried in her arms more tightly so that she didn't drop them as she trotted (slowed down by her limp) to keep up with Edmund, who for some reason was walking impossibly fast and looking more peevish by the second. "They gave me the high king's sword."

"Yeah, so?"

"Doesn't that mean anything?"

"It means they had a sword and gave it to you," he said stubbornly. "Nothing more."

"You're just mad because you're supposed to be Queen Susan," Lucy muttered under her breath.

He heard her anyway. "What was that?"

"Ed…"

"Listen here, you." He spun her around so quickly that she almost dropped the groceries. "They aren't listening to me, but you, my friend, _will_. I am _not_ Queen Susan, I've never been more certain of anything than I am of that. I don't know what the devil is really happening here, but I'll be dashed if someone is going to tell me who to be. Don't you think I've gotten enough of that in my life?"

Unlike her gentle, compliant reaction to his grip in front of the centaur, before they began arguing, Lucy's next reaction was borderline fierce. She ripped herself from his grasp, angrily, though she wasn't quite sure why she was so angry.

"How do you mean? You never have to do anything anyone tells you. You never have!"

"Oh, really?" he growled heatedly. "Well, let's recap, shall we? Your father just grabbed me and said I had to be raised as a princeling at court. No one gave me a choice in that, did they? And before that…does the look on my face when you ask me about what came before that ever suggest I was given any number of choices?"

"How dare you!" Lucy felt tears spring up into her eyes. "Since when is he _my_ father and not yours? And you had a better life at court than you would have had anywhere else…and…and, you know it!" The tears were streaming freely down her cheeks now.

Edmund hated seeing her cry, and he hated himself for being the cause of her tears, but he acted as if it didn't bother him as he added, "Hang it all, Lucy! Why did you have to bring up that society in the first place? Everything was fine until you…"

"Until I _what_?" Lucy burst out, crying even harder. "This is nothing to do with the society. This is to do with the fact that you're telling me that…that you never really wanted to be at court…after all we did for you…"

"I never asked any of you to!"

"Do you regret coming to live at Cair Paravel?" she demanded. "Tell me the truth."

"Sometimes." He bit his lower lip.

"Why?"

"Sometimes I think I should have jumped out of the carriage."

"But _why_?" she pressed, hurt. "We were happy."

"Of course we were." His tone was kindlier. "But sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't have been better if…"

"If what?"

"If he'd just let me die."

"Die?" she repeated, incomprehensively.

"Lu, when King Frank-I mean, Father-found me, I was going to be killed. He used to ask me about it and I told him I didn't remember, and at first that was the truth…but after a while, Lu, I think he knew my memory had returned and that it was just easier for me to pretend it hadn't."

"I don't understand."

"Don't you? That's a lot to live up to; to live up to making the person who saved your life proud. And I'll have you know, nothing I did was to that purpose."

"Of course Father's proud of you!"

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?"

"I meant that every step I made, everything I did, it wasn't for _him_."

"Then who was it for?"

The passing expression on his face plainly said, "If you don't know by now, maybe you never will," but he didn't answer her aloud.

She kept on crying. "If you had jumped-or died-we would have never met."

He closed his eyes. "I know."

"You wish we'd never become friends, don't you?"

"Lu, no." Edmund reached out, took the groceries from her arms, placed them on the ground for the time being, and pulled her into an embrace. "Look, it's all right. I'm sorry, let's make it pax. What does it matter if I sometimes imagine what I would have been spared if I'd jumped out of the carriage when I was nine? The point is I didn't jump; and we _did_ meet. The point is we're friends now, and that's not going to change. You'll always have someone here for you, Lu, always, no matter what."

Her tears slowed and he gradually let go of her and helped her pick up the groceries again.

When they finally reached the place where they'd tied the horse, Lucy spoke again. "Ed?"

"Yes?"

"I'm glad you didn't jump out of the carriage."

Wordlessly, he started tying the groceries into bundles to strap to the horse.

Lucy's eyes drifted over to a young couple, a few feet away from them, meeting at the edge of the village. The boy was a handsome young squire, probably in training to be a knight by the looks of him, and the girl was fair-headed and very pretty in the face.

The boy leaned against a tree, whispering something to the girl. The girl appeared to be flirting with him, dragging one of her hands to the side of her face and daintily tucking a piece of hair behind one ear in a charming fashion.

Without really giving consideration to what she was doing, Lucy copied her, tucking a piece of her own hair behind an ear and imitating the expression on the girl's face.

Edmund, looking up from the bundles, noticed. His brow crinkled in confusion. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing." She patted the horse on the neck. "Let's go."

"I have three more bundles to finish tying," he pointed out.

"Right." Lucy felt incredibly stupid. "Um, well, let's go when you've finished it, then."

"You mean like we were going to?"

"Yes, I, um, forgot."

"Look, Lu, you're not still mad at me…?"

Far from it. "No."

"Good, then wait a bloody minute," he told her with more terseness than was actually required.

Edmund felt bad for having been so cross with Lucy after their lovely afternoon together, and, quite frankly, he wasn't sure what it was exactly that had set him off, making him so moody.

Given, he had a lot of feelings he didn't like to deal with or think about, a few fears that lingered in the back of his mind, but they were nothing new, and he'd rarely ever lashed out at someone he cared about like that before.

Part of him wanted to blame the Rhindon Investation Society, thinking that if it wasn't for them setting weird ideas in Lucy's head, that would have been one less thing to push him over the edge.

Except, deep down, he also knew it was really his own fault.

He had to take responsibility for his own actions and mood-swings.

At least Lucy wasn't holding a grudge; she never did.

And, thankfully, he hadn't elaborated on a lot of the issues he'd brought up in the frustration of the moment. Many of those were matters he preferred Lucy not fully understanding; that much was all for the best.

But how much longer, he wondered, would it be until she wanted to know more? More about him, more about his past, more about why he wished he'd jumped sometimes; just more.

And she had some right to; best friends didn't hold out on each other. Yet, he couldn't tell her. Where would he start anyway? With how he really felt about her? Or maybe with the real reason he'd screamed the night a spark from the fireplace had landed on his hand? It was too much.

She would never be able to take that much in, especially not after all she had to take in from the Rhindon Investigation Society.

And, even if she did, it was probably hopeless.

Even if Edmund had not had all these whirling thoughts crowding his mind, he wouldn't have been pleased, as he paced the corridors, to have banged almost directly into Anne Featherstone of all people.

So when he did, he tried to avoid a conversation with her, but she stood in his way, an uncharacteristically cheerful grin on her face.

"What do you want?"

"I'm taking a poll for the school, have you got a minute?"

Edmund wrinkled his nose. "Um, no."

"You're so funny," she giggled, waving his answer off with an exaggerated gesture of amusement.

"Anne," he said flatly, feeling a little afraid, "are you drunk?"

"No, of course not!" She slapped him on the arm.

"Do _not_ do that again," he told her, taking a step back.

"So, about the poll…"

Dear Aslan, why was she being so persistent? "Fine, what is it?"

"Question one," she cleared her throat; "if you had to choose between a ham sandwich or a plate of venison, which one would you prefer?"

"Venison."

"Good." Her plastered-on smile didn't fade. "Question two, if you had to be forced into an arranged marriage with either me or Mrs. Macready, who would you pick?"

Edmund's face recoiled with disgust. "You or _Mrs. Macready_?" he repeated, incredulous. "Isn't _Mrs._ Macready already married?"

"That's besides the point: pick one."

Anne was impossibly annoying, but she was attractive, and young, unlike Mrs. Macready. "Fine, you."

She fluffed her hair proudly. "Obviously."

"What is the purpose of this poll again?"

"Question three, if Marjorie Preston and I were both hanging from a cliff, and you could only save one of us, which would you save?"

"Why are you and Marjorie on a cliff in the first place?"

"I don't know," Anne said impatiently; "we were hiking or something and didn't see the edge of the gorge."

"You? Hiking?" Edmund laughed with a disbelieving snort. "I don't see it happening. Unless it was magically downhill both ways."

Anne's smile finally started disappearing and her eyes darkened. "Funny. Now hurry up and save one of us so I can get on with my life, won't you?"

"Fine," he said without further hesitation. "Marjorie. Happy now?"

"Why Marjorie?"

 _Because she's not holding me hostage in the middle of a corridor making me answer stupid questions…_ "Seriously, Anne?"

"So, what you're saying is," Anne stated primly: "you like Marjorie better than me."

"Yes," Edmund said shortly.

"How about Mrs. Macready?"

"What about her?" His brow furrowed.

"Do you like Marjorie better than her, too?"

"Anne, do you have _medical_ problems?" Edmund demanded, folding his arms across his chest.

"No, I'm fine. Thank you for helping me with my poll." She stepped out of his way.

Finally! He dashed off, heading towards the corridors the boys' dorms were located in, suddenly thinking that even Eustace Clarence Scrubb would be better-or at least more stable-company than Anne Featherstone.

Anne smiled, genuinely this time, at his retreating back. Of course Edmund really hadn't said he liked Marjorie Preston directly, but now she had gotten enough out of him to twist into making the dense, love-struck girl think he had.

It was simple, really: all she had to do was mention that he'd said he liked Marjorie more than her. The foolish girl's admiration of her roommate would take care of the rest; she would be beyond flattered that Edmund liked her more than Anne, who was so wealthy and pretty and exciting, and, with a little encouragement, would be sure to take the next step and ask Lucy to speak to him on her behalf.

All was going according to plan.


	13. Fiery Fears

It was a day that rather dragged on. The weather was dead-still, and rather stuffy, at that, much warmer than it usually was in the Lantern Waste that time of year.

Some of the students were peeved that there was no chance of escaping the untimely heat by going swimming in the lake Gumpas and Pug used to take them to, as all Physical Education lessons had been canceled until they could get a replacement teacher and teacher's assistant for the two that had been fired.

Instead, they were given extra science lessons with Mr. Ketterley and advanced Historical Literature with Professor Kirke, who insisted they would be grateful enough of the course when they were older and more learned. But whether or not such was, in fact, to be the case in the future, at the time, very few were actually pleased.

Some of Anne Featherstone's friends even out-right blamed Lucy, saying that if the princess had stayed in the ballroom instead of gallivanting off to see Gumpas and Pug's dog, they would have been permitted out-of-doors lessons on that hot day.

Anne Featherstone herself didn't say anything much about the matter (though she might have thought it, or even, at a more private moment, whispered her agreement to a chum or two), trying to keep Marjorie under the impression that she'd 'turned a new leaf' and was 'kind' and 'fair'.

Edmund did little aside from gritting his teeth when he heard what Anne Featherstone's friends were saying about his best friend, but as soon as the griping and whining traveled from the so-called gentle sex to the males of the school, namely a whiny Calormene transfer student, he marched right up to the smug boy, called him an ass to his face, and threatened to send him back to Calormen with his fists if he wrongfully blamed Lucy for anything ever again.

Needless to say, Edmund was still fuming over the incident with Pug and Gumpas kidnapping Lucy, and then leaving her at the mercy of Maugrim, and the mean talk against her was rubbing him the wrong way entirely.

Unfortunately the Calormene boy, while putting on a pretence of being 'brave', was actually quite the coward, and jumped the second the count of the Western Marsh took a single threatening step closer to him, and-as they were in a classroom that had hooks on the walls for the professors to hang up their coats on-ended up getting the back of his billowy Calormene-style shift stuck to the wall, suspended a foot or two above the floor.

The boy, once he managed to get himself down (Edmund sure as anything wasn't going to help him) did tattle, in an extremely petty, headache-inducing manner, to the headmaster; but since Coriakin understood, and was no more fond of that particular Calormene boy (he'd met many lovely Calormenes during his years as headmaster, but this student was not one of them) than he had been of Anne Featherstone, he didn't give Edmund much in the way of punishment.

All that really came out of the complaint was that the star had to give the count a bit of a forced talk on 'why threatening people is wrong', which caused him to miss the two classes he had before his extra science lessons.

When the headmaster said he could leave and escorted him to the door (because, although that was technically one of the Dufflepud's jobs-to show pupils out of the office when they were dismissed-the poor, stupid creature was useless even at so simple a task), Edmund heard shouting in the corridors.

A very flighty young countess from Archenland fainted, her friends bellowing for someone to hurry and bring some smelling salts; Marjorie, who, to be honest, Edmund only just barely noticed was even in the corridor to begin with, save for briefly out of the corner of his left eye in passing, was in hysterics; three dark-eyed first-year boys were trying to take out bets, attempting to make themselves the 'head bookmakers' on whatever it was that was happening (Edmund didn't quite catch what the commotion actually was _about_ ), until Drinian made them stop.

"Dear me," said Coriakin, exhaling sharply. "Must I be everywhere at once? What's happened?"

Lucy, assisted by Jill Pole because she had tried to run too quickly with her limp, eager to see what was going on, and had gone down wrong on her foot and more or less put herself out of easy mobility for the next hour or so, came towards Headmaster Coriakin and Edmund.

"Edmund, what's happening?" she asked breathlessly.

"I don't know, Lu," he told her. "I was in Headmaster Coriakin's office the whole time."

"It's down that way," Marjorie sobbed, rushing over to Jill and Lucy like a frightened child runs to its parents. "It's in the science classroom; Mr. Ketterley's. And, oh, it's dreadful! I jolly nearly _saw_ it!"

"Saw what?" Lucy asked.

"Oh…" Marjorie started crying even harder.

"Stop that sniveling," Edmund barked, in no mood for girlish tears; he was beginning to have a bad feeling about all this, even if he wasn't certain _why_.

"Tell us," Jill urged her friend. "What is it? Why is everyone in a panic?"

"It's…" Marjorie wiped at her eyes, trying to comply with Edmund's orders, but not without some difficultly. "Oh…well, there's a fire…a b-big f-fire…in the science classroom."

Lucy swallowed hard; she knew, unlike the others, that Mr. Ketterley was a magician, and thus that it mightn't be a fire of the normal sort. Who knew what horrible magic-experiment might have cased the flames? If only she'd reported Andrew to Coriakin back when she had the chance…But, then, she might be wrong just as easily; maybe it was an ordinary fire, a non-enchanted accident. She guiltily hoped with all her might that it truly was.

As for Edmund, he might not have known for sure-as Lucy did-that Mr. Ketterley was a magician, but he had his suspicions. He knew a fair deal about magic, none of his knowledge _good_. And he also knew how to recognize, to some extent, the mark of a magician in a face-something he thought he'd seen in Andrew Ketterley from the first, despite his lack of proof.

Furthermore, the count was apprehensive of the fire itself, magical or not. He hadn't even realized he'd latched onto Lucy's wrist and been squeezing it more and more tightly until his best friend let out a little cry and wrenched herself out of his grip.

"Sorry, Lu," he apologized shakily, noticing how off the circulation in her wrist looked now.

"What did you do that for?" Jill demanded, a mite too roughly, perhaps, never thinking she would have lived to see the day Edmund hurt Lucy.

"It's all right, Jill, don't nag at Ed like that, I'm not harmed," said Lucy, defending him; her wrist felt no worse than if her lower arm had fallen asleep, there wouldn't even be a bruise left once she got the blood flowing back into it correctly.

And the count's grip hadn't been one of malice, that much she was certain of. It had been a grip of genuine fear; something had frightened Edmund, only she wasn't sure what. Lucy would not embarrass him by stating aloud that he was afraid, but neither would she allow someone-even someone she was as fond of as she was of Jill-to be so hard on him for his unwitting actions.

"That's not the worst of it," Marjorie went on as the other three fell silent, Edmund very pale and Jill borderline sullen at Lucy's scolding. "I saw the fire raging…and…and…Mr. Ketterley started crying about 'why these things always happen to him'…and this _creature_ …I don't know what it was…some kind of ugly, scaly beast…it…it smashed right through the wall and _flew_ away!"

The corridor seemed to quiet down considerably, and someone had finally revived the Archenland countess.

"Maybe," said Lucy, unsurely, "it's over. Let's go see if there's something we can do to help."

"I suppose," Jill thought aloud, "I could go and look."

Neither of the girls wanted to help Andrew in particular, but they loved the school itself, and knew how much the building meant to Headmaster Coriakin, having been running this place of education for so many years.

Maybe there was cleaning up to do, or there might be some other similar task. Edmund personally was hoping they would send him and Lucy out into the village to fetch something for repairing the broken wall, at least; he felt the need to get away, his whole body ridiculously tense. Better yet, maybe they could simply send him out on his own; a little alone time to reassure himself that he was fine might be just what he needed.

Except, paradoxly, Edmund didn't want to be by himself.

Lucy, Jill, and Marjorie linked arms, Edmund following behind them gravely as they all walked down the corridor, heading for the sure-to-be-charred science room.

To their surprise, the room was still greatly aflame. Coriakin had settled down the corridor immediately outside of his office before coming this way himself, which explained the calm they had assumed meant the trouble was over, but the fire still raged.

Teachers and professors and older students were throwing buckets of water.

Andrew Ketterley was stamping his feet and whining on a repeated loop that it wasn't his fault. No one had bothered to tell him the room was flammable, he protested, he'd done nothing wrong, honest he hadn't!

Marjorie goggled helplessly and pointed at the fire until Jill unlinked her arm with Lucy's and calmly dragged Marjorie's shaking hand back down, telling her there was no need to point to what they could clearly see with their own eyes.

Lucy, not knowing what to do, looked over at Edmund. There was something dreadful in his face. He looked at least ten times more frightened than Marjorie, and he was biting his lower lip, she realized, so that he didn't scream; he was biting down so hard that there were droplets of blood appearing on his mouth.

A wide puff of the fire's smoke blew out of the science room and almost hit Edmund in the face; but in the very instant it would have, he'd grabbed Lucy without any warning, and dragged both her and himself away from that corridor.

Lucy wanted to ask where they were going but was too startled to get the words out.

The next thing she knew, Edmund had pulled her through a side-door and they were outside in the open-air.

Edmund was panting heavily. He put a hand to his mouth, finally noticing for himself that he was bleeding, and cursed once under his breath as he let go of Lucy and slid his back down the red-brick wall of the school until his bottom touched the ground.

"Ed?" Lucy whispered, blinking at him.

He breathed in and out rapidly, then touched the hilt of the stone knife on his belt, as if for reassurance.

"Ed?" she repeated, fighting against the pain in her bad ankle to squat down to his level.

He didn't answer her; his mind was far away.

She sat down beside him, putting her own back against the wall. Slowly and gently, she placed a hand on one of his arms. "Are you all right?"

"Just fine," he muttered.

He wasn't fine; he was all messed up, she could tell. He couldn't hide how shaken he was.

It dawned on Lucy after a moment of reflection, sitting next to her unspeaking companion for a few more dead-silent minutes, that he'd been perfectly all right, in spite of the commotion, right up till the moment Marjorie mentioned the fire. Worse still was when he had seen the fire and nearly been hit by the smoke. It was unsettling, sure, but the fire, though large, was contained in the room; no one else had fled as Edmund had, taking Lucy with him.

She remembered, just then, how Edmund had screamed that night in her room when the fire-spark hit his hand. Anyone else would have yelped once lightly in pain and forgotten about it, only he had been petrified and blamed it on an invisible wasp.

It occurred to Lucy also that she had rarely ever seen Edmund so much as light a simple candle. And he never tended fireplaces, feigning snobbery in saying that it was a servant's task.

"Edmund," Lucy said softly, her expression compassionate, wondering why she hadn't figured this out any sooner, "you're afraid of fire, aren't you?"

"No," he grumbled automatically.

"That's a lie, isn't it?" Lucy pressed, not accusingly, just stating the fact.

He turned his head away from her and closed his eyes, pained. "Yeah."

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" He had, after all, known her for going on eight years now.

Edmund opened his eyes, cocked his head, and snorted. "Why do you _think_?"

"You thought I wouldn't understand?"

"No, I knew you would, and that's just it. I didn't want your pity on something this stupid."

"It isn't stupid," Lucy told him, patting his arm. "Lots of people are afraid of fire."

"Right," he retorted disbelievingly, scowling at her. "Like who, exactly?"

"Well…there's…" Lucy stammered, her brow furrowed in deep thought, trying to think of someone by name. "Oh, come on, Ed. It could be worse. It's not like you're afraid of, I don't know…monkeys or bugs. Eustace Clarence is afraid of heights, you know; Jill Pole told me. I bet a fear of fire is much more, um, common and…"

"Lucy, it's called vertigo, what Eustace gets," he snapped, folding his arms across his chest; "lots of people get it. Besides, Useless is probably scared of his own shadow-that's not the _point_."

"Can I ask you something?"

"If I say no, are you going to ask me anyway?"

Lucy nodded.

Edmund sighed, forced a faint smile of resignation, and said, "Go on, then."

"Why _are_ you scared of fire?"

"Let me put it this way," he said after a pause: "do you know what they do to people convicted of witchcraft, or of having connections or relations to witchcraft?"

Lucy thought it over. "They hang them, don't they?"

"Or they…" Edmund prompted, nodding hard, knowing Lucy was smart enough to figure this one out for herself to some extent.

"Burn them," faltered Lucy, her eyes widening.

"Exactly."

"Oh, Ed!" She slid her hand down from his arm and seized his hand, squeezing it. "You don't mean you were…"

"Almost," he admited, looking away again.

"When?" she breathed, feeling winded, her whole face flushed with horror. _Oh, poor, poor Edmund!_

"Before you met me."

"You don't mean…is _that_ what Father rescued you from?"

"Did Father ever tell you that I slept nearly a fortnight in the carriage?"

"Yes, once, I think."

"Well, it was because I blacked out from the smoke. I was already tied to a stake, and the fire was started, when King Frank came and took me away."

"But _why_?" cried Lucy, appalled. "Why would they do that to you? Who did it anyway?"

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

"It does!"

"Why should it matter? My family hated me because I used to live with a witch. They thought I was going to betray them or something, so they tried to get rid of me; that's all there is to it, all right?"

Lucy's whole face recoiled. "Your _family_ did that to you?"

"Some family!" snorted Edmund. "I barely knew them." His expression went distant and unreachable for a spilt-second before his face looked normal again, proper colour and countenance returning. "Let's drop it now, Lu. I'm sure the fire's over and we can think of some explanation as to why I suddenly had to run out and take you with me."

"There you are!"

A slender shadow passed over the wall, and the two friends looked up to see Jill Pole standing there. She appeared glad to find them, but anxious as well.

They both thought, at first, that it was their sudden exit that had worried her, but as it turned out, it was nothing to do with them.

"Edmund," said Jill, very matter-of-factly, "I know Eustace Scrubb is your roommate, have you seen him today?"

"Not since early this morning, now that you mention it," Edmund admited, shrugging his shoulders. "Why?"

"Because no one can find him."

"Dreams can come true," Edmund murmured.

"Edmund!" Lucy elbowed him in the ribs.

"I was joking," he chuckled, glad that Jill had interrupted Lucy from pressing him for further information. He was sure she would bring it up again later, but he'd cross that bridge when he reached it.

"Why are you so worried about Eustace anyway?" Lucy asked, innocently enough. "I thought you said he was an annoying suck-up and a complete pest. I would think you'd be glad of a day without him bothering you about science notes."

"I've got the feeling he's really missing, not just gone off," Jill explained hurriedly, wringing her hands. "See, the last person who vouched for him making an appearance anywhere today told me that they saw him go into the science room before the fire. Except, no one saw him come out again."

"Oh no." Lucy now understood Jill's worry, and had worries of her own added to it.

What if Mr. Ketterley had done something to him? What if he'd gotten hurt in the fire and been abandoned sort of like Pug and Gumpas just left her to die at Maugrim's paws. It was true that Eustace could be annoying, and he may have deserved his name fair enough, but he didn't quite deserve death or a near-death experience like hers.

If Marjorie's account of a monstrous beast crashing through the wall of the classroom during the fire was at all accurate, maybe Eustace had gone out through the wall, too. Or, more likely, the beast had taken him through with it.

What if Andrew had used magic to summon the beast and it…ugh…Lucy didn't want to think of the fretful boy she'd seen being pulled out of his family carriage on the first day of school getting eaten…all the same, what if that _was_ what happened? Such could be a real possibility. She would never underestimate teachers again; 'dryad' members or not.

Had _she_ caused this? By taking that cursed page and leaving the rest of the book with its owner? Wouldn't it be ironically awful if he'd used that very same book to summon…but, wait. There had been no spells for summoning big monsters that she remembered from reading that book! There was the one about the bees, all right, but that was about it. Unless there was something else further on in the book that she hadn't gotten to. There were lots more pages after the beauty spell one she had stolen for herself and hidden in her room.

Lucy's head spun. She had to help Jill find Eustace, and at once, else her conscience would give her no rest. If this was her fault, and-Aslan willing-Eustace was still alive somewhere, she would undo whatever enchantment her vanity had stopped her from nipping in the bud when she had the chance. There was nothing else for it.

Without warning, an enormous shadow passed over them, revealing what Lucy, Edmund, and Jill all knew could be nothing else but a huge wild dragon, crying-or shrieking, whichever you like-at the top of its powerful, carrying voice, flying far too close to the ground (and thus too close to _them_ ) for comfort.

I wonder, is that the 'beast' Marjorie saw? Lucy thought, slowly standing up and taking a step closer to Edmund, who's hand she was still grasping.

The dragon, a ruddy orange colour with arched brows and a long snout, its wing-span very impressive, even for its kind, circled them a few times, coming just a little lower, it seemed, with each turn.

Suddenly, it made a dive, swooping down and snatching up Jill with its front claws.

"No you don't!" Edmund pulled out the stone knife and charged at the dragon. "Let her go!"

Letting out another cry, looking briefly at Lucy, almost as if it expected her to stick up for it before it remembered that it was a kind of monster-thing and she was a human girl, and so was probably afraid of him by default, it clumsily flapped its wings and took off with a thrashing, utterly shocked Jill, before Edmund could thrust the stone knife into its heart like he'd done to Maugrim the night of the ball.

Jill screamed and screamed at the top of her voice, wondering where by the Lion's mane the dragon was taking her, and what it would do with her when it got there.

There didn't seem to be much hope of being rescued from up here; unless a kindly flock of talking birds decided to take the dragon on, provided it didn't simply roast them alive and have them for appetizers before thinking about devouring _her_ next. If it had been this dragon who'd started that fire in Andrew Ketterley's classroom (although how it would have gotten into the school without being noticed to begin with was beyond her), then clearly the creature could easily toast up a few talking fowls.

They soon hovered over a lawn a good distance from the school itself, but still open and still owned by Headmaster Coriakin. There were a bunch of flames down there; clearly the dragon had already been to this spot earlier and started them, and now he would drop her into the fire and…and…Hey, that was funny: one of those fire-pits kind of looked like an E for a minute there. And the one next to it was curious-looking, too; from the angle the dragon was holding her at, it almost looked like a U.

No, she wasn't going mad from terror, Jill was really seeing words down there. The dragon had dug little pits in the shapes of letters to form words, then set them on fire. It must be a very clever dragon, then. It wanted to tell her something, not eat her.

Jill concentrated, read the sentence, laughed with relief, then blurted out, "By gum!"

Satisfied, the dragon turned round and flew her right back to where an anxious Edmund and Lucy were still standing, placing her down next to them.

"Are you all right?" Lucy threw her arms around Jill and hugged her tightly. "Did the dragon hurt you?"

"Yes. I mean, no; I'm fine, I'm not hurt. See?"

Edmund, the stone knife still in hand, took a threatening step closer to the dragon, who, in turn, let out a rather pitiful cry (for a dragon, anyway) and took about four awkward, slow steps back.

"Edmund, no!" Jill pulled herself away from Lucy and rushed to protect the dragon. "Don't you see? It's Eustace!"

Edmund hastily returned the knife to its ice-blue sheath. "Eustace?"

Lucy rushed forward. "Oh, Eustace!"

"He was only trying to tell us who he was, poor chap," Jill said sympathetically. "He didn't know how else to. I don't think he can talk at all, not in this shape."

"Poor thing." Lucy screwed up her courage and kissed the dragon's scaly face. "There now! You must be so frightened, Eustace. I'm sorry."

Edmund clicked his tongue, grinning impishly at the dragonized version of his roommate. "Drinian will not be pleased."


	14. In Which Nothing Is Done For Eustace

Torn and wrought with feelings of extreme guilt, Lucy wrung her hands and avoided looking Headmaster Coriakin directly in the eyes. She shifted uncomfortably in her place on the couch.

She should say something now, just blurt it out. The Rhindon Investigation Society would understand, wouldn't they? They would defend her, would they not? She was supposed to be their 'high king'; surely…If she confessed to everything, however distressing it was, they would be able to make everything well again.

But Andrew Ketterley's thin, know-everything face popped into her head, and she had to fight against an involuntary tremble and the angry, humiliated tears that pricked the back of her eyes and practically made her blind as she refused to release them.

After seeing Eustace Clarence Scrubb as a dragon, Lucy was certain of one thing: Mr. Ketterley was responsible for the transformation.

Lucy had been told, long ago, by her parents and tutors alike, that stars had great power, but never had she heard of them transforming any shape except for their own, and that was only when they traveled between the sky and earth. Only Andrew could have changed Eustace-with his magic book, most likely.

And she had meant to do the right thing, this time. Lucy had had every intention of telling the Rhindon Investigation Society that she knew Mr. Ketterley was a magician and potentially dangerous.

She would have told Edmund first and pleaded moral support from him, but then it occurred to her exactly what he would ask. He would want to know, understandably, why she had been so tempted by a page in the magic book in the first place and what kind of spell it was. And Edmund, never one to beat around the bush, would be sure ask, also, what the devil she needed beauty for; and she couldn't very well tell him that it was because she loved him and wanted him to take some notice of her for once. She herself barely understood her sudden inward desire to obtain a deeper version of his love, and not well enough to explain it.

So, in the end, Lucy decided she would have to do without her best friend's moral support, and hoped he wouldn't be in the secret chamber during the meeting about Dragon-Eustace, though she readied herself for the likelihood that he would. All the same, she intended to confess then.

Alas, somehow or other, Mr. Ketterley had caught Lucy alone in the corridors a good while before the meeting (which, it had been decided, could not be until late at night, after the majority of the students had gone to sleep, in spite of the urgency).

"A word, Miss Pevensie," the secret magician said in a very stiff, pompous-sounding tone of voice. "As we cannot talk in my classroom, since it is burned to a crisp by no fault of my own, we will talk in this here mathematics room, on my left."

Lucy did not want to go with him (well, look what had happened to Eustace when trapped alone with Mr. Ketterley!), but he was still the teacher, magician or not, and he seemed as if he wanted to talk of nothing more than classroom-work matters. It was very probable that he would forget half-way through their conversation what it was he needed to tell her in favor of getting himself a flask of brandy and she would be free to go. She had had a safe audience with him once before. Furthermore, if she fled, he might, knowing that Lucy was a rule-abiding pupil, realize she knew what he was; then she might truly be in danger, for surely the man, even if he was stupid, wanted to keep his job, which would mean keeping her quiet.

Having been almost sold into slavery by Pug and Gumpas was bad enough, Lucy didn't want to get yet another teacher against her before she had to. Coriakin wouldn't tell Andrew where he'd learned his secret from, probably, so to wait and act normally was the course of wisdom.

The Narnian princess was a bad liar, but maybe if she tried simply to do what Edmund often did-be as vague as possible-all would turn out well enough.

So, she nodded agreeably at Mr. Ketterley and walked through the classroom door he was holding open.

It was not until directly after Lucy had crossed over the threshold that it dawned on her that there was one major difference between meeting Andrew now and having met him after science class when she hadn't been paying attention: Edmund had been outside, ready to save her if need be. This time, however, Edmund hadn't the foggiest idea where she was; Lucy was completely on her own.

 _It will be all right, it will…_ Everything would be fine, she just kept telling herself that, and thinking of how she was doing the right thing, keeping silent now so she could properly confess later.

Except, as soon as Andrew Ketterley entered the room for himself, he looked over at her with glinting eyes, smiled slowly, slammed the door shut, locked it, then exclaimed, "There! Now I know we won't be interrupted."

It was so unlike anything a teacher would be expected to do, and so sudden, that Lucy tensed up and ran to the nearest window, struggling vainly with latches that would not open.

With one surprisingly firm yank, given his practically skeletal build, Andrew pulled Lucy away from the window and lightly-without gentleness but not in a particularly cruel manner, either-shoved her in the direction of a chair in front of a desk he intended to sit at during their talk.

"For pity's sake, child, calm down, won't you? You're giving me such a lot trouble for no reason. I only need to speak with you on a pressing matter." He sat down and rubbed his knuckles together.

Lucy shivered, slowly lowering herself into the chair he had roughly indicated she was supposed to sit in. "Then why…"

"I've only locked the door because I know you often have that angry-faced count with you, and I do not wish for him-or anyone else-to come bursting in here. See, my dear gel, there's a private issue, between the two of us, that needs to be discussed; and the sooner the better."

"How do you mean?" asked Lucy, blinking up at him, her guard half down and half up now.

"Well, I know you enjoyed a certain book of mine," Andrew said, grinning meanly.

Lucy swallowed hard. "I…"

"I may not know much, gel, but I know when a book of mine has been used; all the more so when part of it has been ripped out."

Her face went white as a sheet.

He held up a thin-fingered, bony hand. "Fear not, young miss, I'm not cross with you. It was a thing that any unfortunate school-girl might have done. Furthermore, if you will excuse my saying so, I can see why-in spite of your natural charm-you needed that particular page."

That comment stung a little, but not nearly so much as it had when Edmund had flat-out said she wasn't even pretty back at Cair Paravel. His blunt, nonchalant, 'no' was closer to home than some washed-up magician who thought himself better than everybody else not finding her looks satisfactory.

"The matter, however," Andrew went on, "is that we must come to some sort of agreement, you and I. No one else at this school is aware that I am a magician; silly suspicious, superstitious people would try to harm me as soon as relieve me of my post, you understand. And it's all stupidity, for how else can great feats be accomplished without sacrifice and extreme study? Eh? A few accidents here and there…well, like that fire in my classroom…clearly a clever gel like yourself would understand how important it is that my true work and passion and occupation be kept a secret."

"Why did you turn poor Eustace Clarence into a dragon?" Lucy demanded hotly, in spite of her own discomfort and fear; she needed to know.

"First off, I'll not be spoken to in so rough a tone by one of my students, thank you," he huffed, rolling his eyes and puffing out his chest to make his offence overt. "Second, he was not 'poor'; the lad was quite the nuisance and the mark-grubber. Third, as much as I dislike your attitude, your interest in magic intrigues me greatly, Miss Pevensie, so I will answer your question regardless." He sighed with exaggerated depth. "I did not mean to turn him into a dragon. I was attempting, rather, to conduct a spell that I thought would transport him into another world; a universe parallel to our own-there are many of them, I'm sure of that much. Alas, the experiment went wrong, the boy panicked, and his carelessness ruined my classroom."

" _His_ carelessness?" exclaimed Lucy in disbelief.

"This isn't about blame."

If it was, thought Lucy, it would all be yours and yours alone.

"So, about your knowledge of my magic book," he said, waving off any further mention of the fire or Dragon-Eustace, "may I have your solemn word that you will tell no one about it?"

"Of course not!" she cried, appalled. "I'll not keep it a secret, I'll not! I don't care, Mr. Ketterley. It's wrong, and…and Aslan would disapprove…and…and I'm going to tell the Headmaster."

For a moment, Andrew looked angry, Lucy thought he was going to scream in her face. But he calmed down and simply replied, "Then I suppose I'll have to leave before you do that."

"You'll go away?"

"Of course. Did you expect me to stick around here and be hung because of your meanness? They kill witches and magicians, you know. And now, now I shall be beggared."

For a spilt-second Lucy felt sorry for him. Only then she remembered the fire, and Eustace's frightened dragonized face, and she found she hated Mr. Ketterley too much to pity. She didn't want him to be killed; but maybe, if she was supposed to be so jolly important, she could ask Coriakin to spare his life and just put him in prison or something.

"On second thought," Andrew mulled, his brow going high up, "I like it here. I don't really want to leave. And, if I must go down because of my occupation, tis only fair that others just as guilty go down with me. I must tell them, for fairness' sake, Lucy, that you dappled in a few spells yourself."

"But I didn't know they were spells!" Lucy protested.

"Oh?" His already high brow went up even higher. "Then how do you explain the beauty spell you stole? It's plain enough what that is. And you must have known that it was a spell when you took it."

So that was what this was: blackmail. Andrew Ketterley would tell about her dabbling in magic if she told anyone he was a magician.

"Everyone will know exactly why you wanted it, too," he added coldly. "And your friends will know that you spied on them."

"Anne isn't my friend," Lucy said.

"Ah, but little Marjorie Preston is, is she not? Would you lose your friendship with her over something as simple as keeping your mouth shut?"

Lucy's stomach hurt. She could tell, but then Andrew would wreck havoc on her life and friends. And even if she risked it and told anyway, he might be bluffing about staying and run away, and maybe turn someone _else_ into a dragon before he was brought to justice.

"Think of how good not telling will be for you," Andrew pressed, knowing he had the princess trapped. "You will keep all your friends _and_ the beauty spell page; I don't want it back, haven't got any use for it myself. _I_ don't want to change my appearance. You can keep the secret, say the spell, and be beautiful." He leaned over the desk and whispered, "And, dear gel, the sooner the better, if you catch my meaning. It'll fix that limp of yours as well, I daresay."

Oh, she hated him even more now! How could he do this? How _dare_ he? The horrible, horrible man! He was a dreadful magician and an even worse _person_.

Sadly, at the moment, Lucy couldn't help thinking that she herself wasn't a much better one.

"No…" she said shakily. She wanted to tell him he could have the page back, but couldn't get those words out; deep down, she still ached to be beautiful, and it tugged at her heart and conscience repeatedly.

"Well, if you won't do it for yourself, Miss big heart," said the magician in a cool but disdainful tone, "then do it for your precious Eustace Clarence. If you stop my magic, how do you think he'll ever regain his true form?"

She had not thought of that. What if the Rhindon Investigation Society couldn't turn him back into a boy again?

"But…"

"Gel, if you keep your lips sealed, I promise to study up for a way to change him back. And you keep your friends and your beauty spell. Tell me that's not a fair deal, I dare you to."

She shook her head. "It's wrong, Mr. Ketterley, very wrong."

"Oh, stuff and nonsense! You've only been _taught_ it's wrong, as little children should be. But you're a young woman now, and it's time to learn of many new things. Perhaps magic could be one of them? You'd like to help me turn Eustace back into a boy, wouldn't you? In all your joy over helping him, you might even find happiness in the process of magic, though some of it can be a little unsettling and rough. The rules would be different for you. Just think of it! I could use an apprentice. Do you not see where that would leave you? Extremely well-off! You could grow up to be the most beautiful sorceress in the world, all thanks to magic- _my_ magic. Anything you want, ever, could be yours for the taking."

I don't want it, Lucy wanted to scream out at the top of her voice, I don't want to be a sorceress, I don't want to! Such would be treason against Aslan and Narnia, so of course she meant to stay far away from those kinds of studies.

"And if there was ever a young man who caught your fancy, you'd have him; if not by your stunning looks, then by your magic."

There was only one young man she wanted, and the magician was offering him-and anything else-to her on a silver platter. And Eustace, she had to help him; what had happened was her fault. So joining forces with magic…no, by the Lion, she couldn't do it! She was still considering using the beauty spell, but that was just one spell; to be a full-blown sorceress…oh, no, no, no!

"I will never be your apprentice," Lucy said flat out, with all the conviction she could muster, clenching her sweaty fists.

"Fine, you can keep quiet and let me work on my own in finding a cure for Eustace. Unless you _want_ the chap to be a dragon for ever."

She didn't. "How long will it take?"

"Gel," snorted Andrew, "I'm a magician, not a fortune-teller!"

Tears pricked her eyes. "But you will save Eustace? You promise?"

"I give you my word, Princess."

"In exchange for my silence?"

"Yes."

"And you won't expect me to…to be like you?"

He rubbed his knuckles together. "The offer of magic lessons still stands, being as you know about my magic already, and I do hope you reconsider, but in the meantime, no; you shall do as you please."

 _Oh, Aslan, please, please forgive me for this._ "Then I promise not to tell."

"Ah, I knew you were reasonable, dear." He reached out and grabbed one of her hands, as if to shake it in thanks.

She didn't much like his touch, but Lucy didn't pull away until she felt a bit of pressure on her left index figure and found that he'd slipped a ring on there.

"What…?"

"Tis a mere token of my gratitude, and a reminder that, if you wish to learn magic, my doors are always open to you, my friend." Reaching over and patting the hand he'd put the ring on, Andrew added, "Oh, and even if you don't join me, I would still recommend you do that beauty spell. It would suit you wonderfully, Miss Pevensie."

Lucy examined the ring. It was made of a hard material that was neither gold nor silver, nor iron, nor any other kind of metal she'd ever seen-or felt-before. The ring's colour changed from golden-yellow to grass-green depending on the light.

Now the princess sat in the secret chamber, the Rhindon Investigation Society discussing what to do about Eustace's current situation, and she didn't know what to say.

What was she _supposed_ to say? That she had bargained for Eustace with a magician, and partly out of selfish motive because she-in spite of everything-wanted to keep the beauty spell page? That she knew-had known for a while-that Andrew was a magician? And, what, ruin Eustace's chances of becoming a boy again?

She felt unfaithful and horrid; she knew she ought to trust Aslan to set all things right, but her head was swimming. Part of her hoped Andrew had laid some enchantment on her through the ring, something she could blame her stupidity and indecisiveness on, but she knew it was her own fault. It was no charm holding her fast; it was her own vanity. Yes, it was the very vanity she'd believed, up till now, she didn't possess.

More than once during the society's long talk, Lucy had been discreetly trying to remove the ring from her index finger; no one else (not even Edmund) appeared to have noticed it yet, but she was more aware of the ring's irksome presence even than she was of her bad ankle. Only the blasted thing wouldn't come off! She tugged at it, but it stayed firmly stuck, as if part of her flesh.

"If only we knew how he was turned," said Rhince, clicking his tongue. "It is such a pity we haven't a clue."

"We have a clue," Edmund spoke up for the first time since the meeting started, "though not a very good one."

"What clue is that?" asked Professor Kirke.

Lucy stopped tugging at the ring and looked over at Edmund in surprise. Yes, what clue, exactly, did he mean?

"Andrew-I mean, Mr. Ketterley-he doesn't strike me as a normal person," Edmund tried, wincing.

"How so?"

Lucy's heart was in her throat. Edmund had said something about living with a witch before, and he seemed to know more of magic than he let on generally. Was he aware of what Andrew truly was? Was he going to tell? Did she really want him to? Of course she did; sort of.

Edmund shook his head, saying no more. It occurred to him that he could not state his full suspicions about Andrew without letting on about his past. It was all right that Lucy-his best friend-had a vague notion that he'd lived with an enchantress as a child, but to let the whole darn Rhindon Investigation Society know that? He wondered what he'd been thinking even _considering_ it.

What if they turned on him just like his old family before Helen and Frank had? Caspian, well, he liked him, but he also considered the Telmarine Valedictorian a loose cannon to some degree; it had been he, after all, who'd found the stone knife under the floorboards. And the others? Well, he didn't know them well enough. Professor Kirke might understand, but there was no guarantee.

"I think he set the fire on purpose," Edmund said at last, rather lamely.

"And that has _what_ to do with Eustace?" asked Headmaster Coriakin, frustrated.

Lucy sighed. "Marjorie Preston said she saw a great creature crash through the wall after the fire started. From the inside out." She would say no more than that, though.

"Well, it seems," sighed Ivy, smoothing a ripple-like wrinkle in her gown of satin crimson, "as if the only thing we can do is keep Eustace out in the secluded woods until we can figure something else out. The other students would be frightened. This is not as simple to cover up as Lucy's limp and Gumpas and Pug's dismissal."

"I wouldn't call any of that _simple_ ," muttered Edmund, mostly to himself.

Lucy, over-hearing, would have laughed if not so weighed down by stress at the moment.

Caspian moved from his place and sat between Edmund and Lucy for no real reason except that Nikabrik kept poking him and hissing some irrelevant gibberish at him and it was getting a little annoying.

Suddenly Lucy thought about what Mr. Ketterley had said; about how she should use the beauty spell soon. What if he was dead-wrong? She knew she wasn't beautiful, but even Andrew had admited there was some appeal to her without standard beauty, much as he suggested adding it.

Maybe it wasn't true that no one took notice of her. She wondered if she could make a boy-or young man-notice her if she wanted. Not Edmund, clearly, much as she-and perhaps _because_ she-loved him. But what about someone else?

She glanced at Caspian, then glanced away, then looked back and stared a little. What about him? Lucy wondered if he'd ever noticed her as more than a combination of a sweet little princess and the next High King Peter.

Tucking a strand of her hair behind one ear, Lucy reached out and gingerly touched the Telmarine valedictorian on the arm, half-smiling at him.

Caspian smiled back warmly, as if grinning at a friendly child he was fond of.

Lilliandil understood but was not the least bit cross or jealous; for it became rather apparent to her that Lucy's love interest was not Caspian, despite the fact she was flirting (or, rather, _attempting_ to flirt) with him. Fittingly, this generation's Peter loved this generation's Susan. The star felt sorry for Lucy, though, because it was plain as day that the poor girl was going through the great changes of life, from childhood to womanhood, and she was finding some parts of it hard to deal with. All the more so having to face up with all the Rhindon Investigation Society had made her aware of.

Edmund, on the other hand, didn't quite see it in that light. He, unlike Lilliandil, understood nothing at all, except that Lucy was showing borderline-romantic attention to Caspian. And, needless to say, he didn't much like that.

The count tried to deal, focusing on the Eustace issue, taking some comfort in the fact that Caspian was wholly oblivious, but when he saw Lucy cock her head to one side dementedly and touch the Telmarine's arm a second time, he couldn't help feeling angry and jealous.

Sure, he and Lucy were friends, nothing more; still, this was too much to bear up with. He half-wanted to stand up, grab Caspian by the collar of his Telmarine-style shift, and move him back to his seat next to Nikabrik. Why did the blighter switch bloody seats in the first place? If he'd stayed put, everything would have been just fine! Stupid Caspian.

When the meeting was adjourned, Eustace's fate still largely undecided, and Lucy and Edmund found themselves alone in a corridor, on their ways back to their rooms, Edmund made the mistake of voicing his displeasure.

"You know, Lucy," he said, in a rather spiteful, grown-up kind of voice, "I couldn't help noticing you seemed…er…really _intent_ on touching Caspian's arm every five minutes." –that, actually, was a bit of an unfair judgment, as Lucy had really only touched his arm about three times in all.

Lucy felt her cheeks flush. Edmund _had_ noticed, then. She wished she hadn't done her little experiment regarding her ability with young men right in front of him after all, realizing at last how embarrassing that was-for both of them.

"Well," Edmund went on, his hands clasped together behind his back as he walked, "I just thought you should know that making sheep-eyes at him is probably not the best idea."

"And why not?" Lucy managed to blurt out, feeling so self-conscious she wished the corridor would turn into a gapping black hole and swallow them both.

"Because it's obvious that he likes Lilliandil." Edmund blinked pretentiously. "And, well, you've seen her."

That comment, coupled with the memory of how Edmund had admired the gorgeous Lilliandil on their first day of school, was like a slap across the face to Lucy. She had only been pretending to like Caspian as more than a friend, and she regretted it deeply. Edmund, she assumed, had not-could not have-been feigning his admiration of Lilliandil's looks.

The comparison between her, a plain-faced princess, and a star's daughter hurt even more than the count's flat 'no' back at Cair had.

"What are you saying, Edmund?" She stopped walking and looked him dead in the face. "That if I liked Caspian I wouldn't stand a chance because I don't look as Lilliandil does?"

"Um…" Edmund hadn't thought that far ahead, he hadn't realized his comments would _hurt_ her; that wasn't what he wanted! "No! I mean, yes! I mean…hang it all! Lucy, that's not it."

"Then what is?" She folded her arms across her chest and forced her tears to keep themselves at bay.

"He's just…and you're, well, I mean _look_ at you!" He gestured at her with his right hand once very quickly before it struck him that his comment sounded very, very unkind.

Lucy sucked her cheeks in. "You know what, Edmund? You're right. I don't…and he wouldn't…"

"Lu…" Edmund wanted to make amends but wasn't sure how.

"I give up," Lucy whispered, shaking her head, turning away and walking down the corridor.

He followed after her. She couldn't get that far ahead with her limp. "Lu, you don't…oh, Aslan, don't tell me you really like him."

She closed her eyes and let out a short snort. "Does it matter?" Edmund had already made it perfectly clear that she wasn't pretty enough to be noticed by men.

"Lucy, I didn't mean it."

"Yes, you did," Lucy said coldly, biting the tip of her lower lip. "And if you'll excuse me, Count Edmund, I think I would like to go the rest of the way to my room on my own. It would probably be best if Mrs. Macready did not see you in the girls' parts of the school. So get on with you."

He had never been disregarded so coldly and formally by Lucy before. He'd cut her deeply, and he wasn't sure if there was anything he could do to smooth things over, this time.

Lucy spent the remainder of her night utterly miserable, sleeping only an hour or two at best. The rest of the time she paced the floor of her room, gazed sadly into the fireplace, or sat in the middle of her bed, crossed-legged, holding the beauty spell page in her hands. She felt as if she had lost something dear to her heart and wanted it back more than anything in the world.

Was the beauty spell the way to make everything well again? Or would it only complicate matters even more? She might have gone through with it, only the roaring her ears was driving her mad, and she couldn't bring herself to chant the words; her jaw felt as heavy as lead-crystal, and her tongue was a frozen block of ice.

At one point, Lucy picked up the page and almost threw it into the fire to burn it, but her fingers refused to let go; she wasn't ready to give up that twinge of sinful hope the spell symbolized.

Meanwhile, Edmund laid perfectly still in his hammock, alone in his room with naught but his thoughts to keep him company.

Dragon-Eustace was out in the woods somewhere doing Aslan knew what, and Caspian had not returned (Edmund strongly suspected he was off someplace with Lilliandil, and wondered if Coriakin knew).

His hammock swung back and forth as he shifted, staring up at the ceiling. What was he going to do about Lucy? About Eustace? About Andrew? About his past and his fears? About the Rhindon Investigation Society? About everything?

Discouraged, Edmund pulled the handkerchief-bound silver locket with the lock of Lucy's hair in it out of his doublet's breast-pocket. He clutched it in his hand tightly and closed his eyes half-way.

The next morning, Lucy washed her face and grimaced as she dressed in another one of Edmund's tunics, this one so dark a purplish-blue that it looked almost black in some lightings. It seemed most unfair that _everything_ had to remind her of him, and of her fight with him the night before.

She wasn't used to quarreling with him for long periods of time, always having let their disagreements slide without much thought. Precious little could induce her to stay angry with her friend. Truth be told, Lucy was already tired of being hurt, she wanted to let it go so they could be best chums again.

If only none of this had ever happened!

How she wished she hadn't been so stupid, and Edmund so blunt and heartless.

Or was it mere honesty?

He hadn't called her an ugly crone or anything like that. Nothing he had said was a lie. She _wasn't_ as beautiful as Lilliandil; even if she used the beauty spell, she knew she wouldn't be. Besides, she didn't actually want Caspian; as far as she was concerned he and the star's daughter were a perfect couple.

And yet, Lucy was unhappy.

Nothing else for it, she finally decided to start for her classes alone that day. Better not wait for Edmund, as if she was expecting him. He might not want to speak to her, after how she left him the corridor, dismissing him from her sight so haughtily.

On the way to her first class, she ran into Marjorie, who asked if she heard the rumour that Eustace had left school and gone back home because Lady Alberta was ill.

Lucy just shrugged her shoulders. The night before, one of the Telmarines-it may have been Rhince, or else it was that general who posed as a lord-had suggested starting such a rumour, to keep Dragon-Eustace's story from being too far spread, as there was clearly dark magic afoot.

Marjorie noticed that Lucy seemed a little dejected. "You all right, Lucy? Your eyes are puffy and you look paler than usual."

"I'm just tired," Lucy said, forcing a weak smile that did not reach her glassy eyes. "That's all."

"Oh, all right then," said Marjorie cheerfully. "As long as it's only that. I thought you might be coming down with some illness, maybe like Lady Alberta."

"No, I'm fine."

"I say, where's Edmund?"

"I don't know."

"I'm surprised to see you going to class without him, is all."

In a snappish tone that surprised even herself, Lucy blurted, "I don't need him with me all the time, you know!"

Marjorie flinched, uncomfortable. "Sorry. Did something happen with you two?"

"N-no," said Lucy, not quite truthfully. "I mean, we're best friends, why wouldn't we be fine? I simply feel like walking to class by myself today."

A more discerning person would have noted the broken quiver in Lucy's voice, but Marjorie didn't pick up on it.

"That's all you and Edmund are, right?" Marjorie examined her cuticles, waiting nervously for the answer.

"Yes, of course," Lucy told her. "Why?"

"Well, someone told me he…" Marjorie's face went scarlet. "Someone said he might be interested in me…you know, as more than a friend…and, the thing is, this person, they don't know him so well as you do. And…and if you could talk to him for me, and let him know that, maybe, if he wanted to…we could…well, would you, Lucy?"

Lucy, recalling the magic-book scene, could easily guess who that 'person' was. Also, while she ought to have seen this coming, it still felt like Marjorie had unintentionally taken a knife and stabbed her in the heart. Because, of course, now she couldn't just say no, that she wouldn't talk to him for her, not with that earnest, hopeful little face bashfully awaiting her answer.

Moreover, if Edmund _did_ like Marjorie, even a little bit, she would have to-for friendship's sake-support them being…together. Her mouth tasted like copper coins and she wanted to run back into her room and shut the door and not come out again for the rest of the day so that she didn't have to deal with any of these emotions raging within her.

"Yes," she said, her voice faint, "I'll talk to him for you." _If he's even still talking to me, that is._

"Oh, thank you!" Marjorie squealed and pulled her friend into a hug. "I knew you would! You're the best! The absolute best! I owe you. Anything you want me to do, name it. Say, do _you_ like anyone? Anyone I'm friends with?"

"No," said Lucy flatly, trying not to let her broken heart show-at least, not too much. "Thank you anyway." She didn't mention that Marjorie didn't really have any male friends that weren't hers, unless she counted the dunderheads that were in love with Anne Featherstone.

When Edmund walked into history class to find Marjorie seated with some other girl who's name he didn't recall, and Lucy, instead of having saved a seat for him and waiting, sitting with Jill, he was a bit jarred.

Oh, his Lucy was still mad at him! And perhaps with right; he didn't blame her, not really. He had been stupid enough to imply she wasn't pretty enough to be noticed by men. Which, for the record, wasn't true; if he truly believed she wasn't pretty, he wouldn't have seen Caspian as a threat last night, plain and simple.

The count wound up sitting in the only free seat, sharing a table with that Calormene boy who'd gotten caught on a hook. He was miserable until the end of the lesson, nothing from which he actually remembered afterwards.

Soon the other students had all cleared out except for Lucy who was helping Professor Kirke arrange some papers because she had promised last week to help him and had forgotten. It seemed as good a time as any to avoid the awkward pause there was sure to be between herself and Edmund, standing in the corridor, wondering: do we walk together now, or don't we? Are we still mad at each other? If so, _why_?

Professor Kirke himself was outside the classroom, trying to prevent a student from stealing three jars of black quill-pen ink the lad had pinched from the cabinets at the back of the room when he'd thought the professor wasn't looking.

The door was shut, and Edmund had stayed behind, making himself and Lucy the only ones in the room.

Edmund had to speak with her now or else go mad. He had to apologize and straighten all this out. How could he bear the rest of the day like this when he felt as if one more hour would tear him to pieces inside?

"Lucy," he said, approaching the professor's desk and putting his hands on the edge, nervously cracking his knuckles against the wood, "do let's make it Pax. I'm awful sorry about what I said. It was cruel and thoughtless. And, oh, Lu, if you _do_ like Caspian, I'm sorry about Lilliandil, really. It isn't that she's any better than you, honest. I think they were in love long before we even came to this school."

He waited, but she said nothing, keeping her head down, focused on the papers.

"Lu, please forgive me," Edmund whispered, his voice lower now.

A tear escaped from her eyes and landed on one of the papers. The princess hastily tried to keep it from smearing the ink.

"Now would be a good time to give me a sign that we're still friends," he pressed, not too demandingly, having seen the tear.

Lucy reached for the professor's tobacco holder, the one shaped like a silver apple. Wrapping her fingers around it, she lifted it up and handed it to Edmund, finally looking him in the eyes.

Almost crying himself, he reached for it, his fingers brushing against hers. "Thanks."

As Edmund was placing the apple-holder back down, Lucy reached for his hand. His fingers were quick and had latched around her wrist before she even made contact with him.

Both leaning over their sides of the desk, their faces were close together now.

Without thinking, Lucy tilted her head to one side, and Edmund's lips almost touched hers, pulling away at the last minute.

Ever so sadly, he shook his head at her and let go of her wrist.

Then the count left the classroom without another word, not even once looking back in her direction.


	15. Confessions and Explanations

"What are you doing here?" Lucy asked, keeping her voice low because she wasn't sure where Mrs. Macready was and didn't want Edmund to get in trouble, although, actually, as it was fairly early in the evening, even if he _was_ caught, he wouldn't be punished too severely; maybe he would get a lecture on propriety and the school's high standards at most.

The princess had heard a light knock on the door of her room and had, thinking it would be Jill or perhaps Marjorie, come to talk to her for some reason or other, opened it to find Edmund standing there.

They hadn't spoken to each other since their little moment after Professor Kirke's history class. Whenever they'd met up, during other lessons they had in common, they hadn't sat together or even met each others' eyes, though-to be fair-Lucy tried; Edmund seemed to be the one avoiding her attention like it was the plague.

Lucy wasn't sure what it was exactly she'd done wrong. When he had asked for her forgiveness, she hadn't known what to do. As she couldn't tell him she loved him, too choked up and afraid, she had done the only thing that came to mind: giving him the silver apple.

At the time she wasn't sure why she'd thought it was such a great idea, a way to show him she wasn't angry anymore-at least, not angry enough not to be friends. But afterwards, thinking it over, she found herself remembering one of her favorite stories concerning how High King Peter and Queen Susan met; Susan giving Peter a silver apple. Subconsciously, the apple-holder had appeared to be her only means of communicating with the count. There was also the fact that Edmund had given her an apple on their first day here at school.

And, oddly enough, she was certain he understood; perhaps even better than she herself did. The look on Edmund's face when he'd said, "Thanks" had been deep and sincere. Furthermore, he had almost kissed her. She wasn't sure why he hadn't, except that clearly he didn't feel that way about her, close and dear to each other as they were, but the part of her that remembered how she had promised to speak to him on Marjorie's behalf was glad enough that he'd pulled away. All the same, paradoxly, she felt a little rejected as well.

Understandably, after what happened between them, she had not even expected one of Edmund's semi-regular late-night visits, usually spurred by his need not to be alone because of nightmares or something else that triggered a past memory he would rather forget, never-mind one towards the end of the twilit hour of the day.

Yet, here he was, and her question and surprise, while too sternly put because of her great shock, was only to be expected.

"We have a composition to write," Edmund reminded her, a little grumpily. "For Professor Kirke's class, remember? We're supposed to finish researching how the high king got the sack."

Lucy frowned. "Now?"

"No time like the present." He shrugged his shoulders with faux-indifference.

"Well, thank you for putting it so nicely, anyway," Lucy said coldly, folding her arms across her chest. He knew how sensitive she was about Peter's end; especially after what the Rhindon Investigation Society had been telling her.

Actually, Edmund didn't care about the assignment, it was just an excuse; though not a particularly good one.

"Are you going to let me in before the Macready comes and beats me with a stick?" he asked dryly.

Lucy nodded, biting back a tiny smile. She couldn't refuse him admission if her life depended on it, and it was getting increasingly difficult to be distant with her friend.

She stepped aside and let him through.

"I haven't seen the Macready today, Edmund, to be honest," said Lucy, after a pause.

Edmund tried not to laugh. "Honestly, Lu? I know. She's come down with a bad cough and lost her voice. Headmaster Coriakin called a physician who says she has to stay in bed for at least a day or two without talking. I think, with the all the confusion over Useless Flame-mouth, Coriakin's not going to bother to hire a temporary replacement for a girls' housekeeper; he's got bigger problems."

"Then why did you say-" Lucy began.

He rolled his eyes. "I wanted you to let me in," he stated, as if it were obvious.

"You didn't think I would?" asked Lucy.

"I wasn't sure," Edmund admitted, looking a little forlorn. After the way he had walked out on Lucy, after finally gaining her forgiveness, he couldn't help thinking that she might not want to see him, and yet, he was dying to talk to her, even if he didn't know quite what to say.

"Did you really come to work on the composition?" she wanted to know.

He fought against a guilty grin. "No."

"You came to see me, then?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I miss you."

"It's been a day," Lucy giggled, mostly to hide the fact that she missed him too.

"So?" He furrowed his eyebrows. "What does that matter?"

"Ed?"

"Yeah?"

"It _was_ a long day."

"So, friends again?" He offered his hand.

Lucy shook it, fighting back a light sigh. "Friends; like we've always been."

"I'm sorry about…" Edmund wanted to apologize for walking out on her earlier, and for avoiding her for the rest of the day, but couldn't get the right words out; his tongue felt all hollow and twisted. "Oh, never-mind."

An hour or so later, Lucy was sitting on her bed, pretending to read a book, her mind wandering, and Edmund was sitting in the hearth, a good distance from the low fire, which he wouldn't (as Lucy now understood) look at directly for too long, much as he glimpsed the tiny orange-red flickers out of the corners of his eyes from time to time.

Her mind returning, Lucy once again recalled her promise to Marjorie. She had given her word and could put it off no longer; best to get it over and done with before she lost her nerve completely.

"Edmund?"

"What, Lu?" He glanced over at her.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Fire ahead." Coming from _him_ of all people, this was something of an ironic statement; but as it is rather a common figure of speech, that hardly mattered.

"Do you think," she said at last, "Marjorie Preston is pretty?"

What sort of question was that? He supposed she was, just not remarkably so. Pretty in a plain sort of way, maybe, but he'd never really paid enough attention to the flighty-minded lass to notice. But she wasn't hideous or anything.

"I suppose such," mumbled Edmund, confused as to why Lucy would bother asking his opinion on her hysteria-prone friend's looks.

"I see." Lucy looked away from him, and a few moments later he thought he heard repressed sniffling.

"Lu, are you crying?"

She didn't answer.

"Lucy…" Edmund got up from his place and walked over to her, kneeling on the edge of her bed, putting a hand on her shoulder. "What's the matter?"

Why did he have to be so good to her? That only made it more painful. "N-nothing." She wiped at her eyes. "I'm a little over-tired, I think."

He rubbed her arm. "Come on, Lu, I know you better than that."

"She likes you, too, you know," she told him.

"Who?" Edmund's concerned expression was laced with genuine puzzlement.

"Marjorie."

"Marjorie _Preston_?"

"Do you know another Marjorie?" Lucy asked, probably _attempting_ sarcasm but sounding quite serious and level-toned instead.

"What's Marjorie got to do with anything?"

"Don't you like her?" She blinked at him innocently.

"I think she's a very, erm, _normal_ girl for her age," Edmund came up with, not certain what Lucy meant by her usage of the term 'like'.

That didn't sound, even to Lucy's vague knowledge, like something a besotted young gentleman would say about the girl he admired. Maybe she'd misunderstood something?

"I thought you…well, when you said…just now…" she stammered.

"You thought I was taken with Marjorie Preston?" His nose wrinkled involuntarily. "By the Lion, Lu, have you gone round the bend?"

"I think I might have," Lucy told him, blushing, feeling the strangest urge to cry again.

He stared at her, reaching up and touching the side of her face. "I think I followed you when you did."

"Why did you leave me alone in Professor Kirke's room today?" The question passed through her lips before Lucy realized she had been preparing herself to ask it.

Edmund was caressing her face with one of his thumbs now. "I can't do this," he whispered brokenly. "I can't."

"Do what?" Lucy leaned into his touch.

"Lion save me," he murmured. "This will be the death of me."

"I don't know what you mean."

"I'm a disgraced count turned princeling, Lu."

"Yes, so?"

"And you're the only daughter of the king of Narnia."

"I don't understand…"

"Of course you don't," Edmund said gently. "Because you don't worry about those things."

"Edmund, what things?"

"Lucy, can you honestly tell me you have no notion of what's going to be done with you when you're through with your schooling? Have you never thought about it? Sometimes, it's all I can think about."

Frankly, what Lucy was having a hard time getting passed thinking borderline-obsessively about at the moment was the loving way he was touching her face still; and, no, she hadn't thought anything would happen after school-she supposed she would just go back to Cair Paravel, as would Edmund.

"Father will probably arrange a marriage for you."

Lucy jerked her head back. "Marriage?"

"You're their only daughter. They don't have anyone else to use to make alliances with other countries or courtiers."

"What if I don't want to?" Her expression looked shrunken, small and childlike, laced with faint determination. "They wouldn't make me marry anyone; Father and Mum, they wouldn't do that to me."

"No, they wouldn't do that _to_ you," Edmund said miserably. "But they _would_ do it _for_ you."

"Only," Lucy protested, "how if I didn't want to marry someone they picked out? What if…" Her face grew hot and she swallowed hard and let her eyes drift downwards before screwing up her courage and adding, "What if I wanted to marry someone else; say, someone I knew very well, like you?"

His heart hurt; he hated this. "Think about it, Lu. What was I brought to Cair Paravel for?"

"So you weren't killed, of course."

She really was making this more difficult with her confusion and innocence. "No, no, not _that_! What did Father say when he first wanted you to greet me?"

Lucy thought back, hard. "He said…well, um, he said 'come and greet thy new brother'."

"I know you're smart enough to get this now," Edmund sighed, arching an eyebrow: "what was that quaint little term he used?"

"Brother," Lucy repeated.

"There you have it. I'm supposed to be your companion, nothing more."

"Father never _said_ …"

"Some things just go without saying."

"If you're his adopted son," Lucy mulled, her mind whirling, "then why wouldn't he use _you_ for alliances?"

"Again, quaint term."

"Adopted?"

Edmund nodded.

"Maybe he means to put you on the throne, as an heir!" Lucy gasped, thinking she was onto something. "Oh, Ed, wouldn't-"

He was beginning to look a little peeved, her ignorance wearing him to a shadow. "Haven't you got it into your head? I'm useless to him aside from showing gratitude and growing up into a good courtier. I'm not his real son; he cannot make me his heir."

"Let me get this straight," Lucy said, pouting. "Because he calls you my brother, if…for some reason…we wanted to marry, we couldn't. But even though you're supposed to be his son, you can't take the throne?"

"Tough nuts for me, isn't it?" Edmund chuckled bitterly.

"None of this makes any sense to me," she declared flatly. "Why it's very nearly all gibberish!"

"Don't get too worked up." He took one of her hands in his. "It's not worth it, take it from me."

"I suppose it's not," agreed Lucy, very sadly. "After all, while I'm sorry you can't take the throne-I do believe you would be a great king, Edmund, whatever the Rhindon Investigation Society means saying I'm supposed to be the one to lead Narnia into a new golden age-all that bleakness about marriage is null, I suppose. You don't think of me like that."

Edmund snorted. "And you would know that _how_?"

"I'm not stupid, it's clear you don't…"

"Lucy, this isn't easy for me to say, but for the record, you're wrong; I love you."

"You do?" Her widened, utterly stunned.

"Oh, don't you know _anything_?" exclaimed Edmund, not unkindly.

She shook her head. "Not about this."

Taking a deep breath, he reached into his doublet breast-pocket and pulled out the handkerchief she'd loaned him. "Lucy, every step I took, every way I bettered myself, don't you remember my saying it wasn't for King Frank?"

"Yes." She remembered that, from their fight that day in the village.

"It was for you, Lucy," he confessed, wondering how he dared, certain he would think himself a fool soon enough for not keeping his mouth shut. "Everything I've done was only in hopes of keeping myself near you for as long as possible."

The Narnian Princess felt an intense chill running up and down her spine.

"Look." Edmund pulled on the thread that held the handkerchief closed and it frayed between his finger-tips. Slowly, he opened the handkerchief and showed her the locket. "I've kept this, and not because I'm fond of Jackdaw jokes, either."

At that, Lucy laughed and threw her arms around his neck, embracing him.

Edmund sighed and pulled away from her grasp. "What are you so happy about?" For any fool could see the tears in her eyes now were of joy, not sorrow.

"Well," she breathed, her tone as absurdly full of ecstasy as the rest of her, "you just said you love me. How could I not be happy?" And to think he'd kept that locket-something she had long forgotten about-for all these years!

"I also just told you we can't be together," he pointed out.

"I still don't see why not," argued Lucy. "If we love each other Father won't really object; he wants us to be happy."

"He _will_ , Lu," Edmund insisted. "And with good reason; he has to think about what's best for his country. Besides, you deserve to be with someone right for you."

Looking at him with such a loving expression on her face that it sort of made his stomach hurt if he stared at it directly for too long, Lucy whispered, "Aren't you right for me?"

Edmund cheeks reddened, as they had when she'd kissed him to thank him for the ball-gown what suddenly felt like so very long ago. "Lucy…"

"I won't, you know."

"Won't what?"

She closed her eyes tightly, then opened them again. "Marry someone else."

"Even for the greater good?"

"Ed, I've given up enough for the greater good," Lucy said, thinking-although he didn't know it-of her promise to Andrew Ketterley, which she had made so rashly in hopes of helping Eustace. "I'll not lose you for anything short of Aslan himself."

Weakening in his former resolve, Edmund slipped an arm around Lucy's waist and, pulling her closer, kissed her twice on the mouth.

Lucy smiled, kissed him in return, and whispered, "I love you, too."

Reaching up, she tried to touch one of his cheeks with her left hand, but as if something had bitten him, Edmund jumped, nearly falling off the edge of the bed.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

He had felt the metal of the ring on her index finger; sensing that it was unnatural, it had momentarily repelled him. "Where did you get that?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to…" Lucy blurted, covering her face with her hands.

"Didn't want to what?" Edmund reached up and took her left hand in his, examining the ring more carefully, though he was clearly hesitant to touch it.

"Andrew Ketterley," Lucy sobbed. "He… Edmund, I'm so sorry!"

"So he _is_ a magician," Edmund said, not exactly surprised. "And you knew."

"Yes, please don't be angry with me."

"I'm not," he said reassuringly. "Disappointed, a little, though. There's magic in this ring, you know. I felt its presence when you touched my face."

"I know-about the magic, I mean, and I don't want it, but it's stuck to my finger."

"Why did you take it from him in the first place, my love?"

Lucy was caught between her shame and her giddiness at his just calling her 'his love'. "I didn't want to, he forced it on my finger."

"And the coward threatened you into keeping your mouth shut, didn't he?" Edmund demanded, wishing Andrew was there in the room with them so he could punch his head.

Lucy nodded. "I only…I only wanted to help Eustace…and…and he said he'd tell…"

"Tell what?"

"I accidentally dabbled in a little magic without realizing," Lucy confessed timidly. "Mr. Ketterley found out and said he would tell everyone. Edmund, I was scared. I know I should have told you; I wish I had."

"We'll find a way to get you out of this scrape, Lu, I promise. And if Andrew ever comes near you again, I'll beat him senseless."

"And we'll rescue Eustace Clarence, too, won't we, Ed?"

Edmund shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, sure, why not?"

"Do you mind if I ask how you know so much about magic?" She braced herself for his defensiveness.

"I told you: I used to live with a witch."

"But why?"

Edmund hesitated. What if, now that things seemed so different, now that he knew Lucy had unwittingly been dragged into bad magic, too, and thus might really understand his pain in a way he'd never thought anyone would, he finally simply broke down and told her? Would he feel relief? Regret? Would Lucy love him still if she knew the truth?

"Lucy," he said, at last, "would you like to go somewhere with me tonight? I want to tell you, but I don't think I can do it here."

" _Can_ we go somewhere?" It had never occurred to Lucy to sneak out.

Edmund smirked. "I won't tell if you won't."

She stood up and took his hand. "Lead the way."

"Thank the Lion for no Macready tonight," Edmund whispered into her ear, making her giggle again.

It was later now than when he had initially arrived in her room that evening, not extremely so, but enough so that most of the other students-if they weren't in bed already-were in the process of undressing for bed, and thus all had their window's curtains drawn.

They 'borrowed' the dapple-gray horse they had ridden into the village on the day they had fought, rather under the impression that no one found them out. That, however, was not completely true: Professor Kirke and Coriakin happened to see them riding away, looking out of the Headmaster's office window.

"We have rules against this sort of thing," said Coriakin to Digory, a bit tiredly.

"Perhaps this is a part of the legend we should not interfere with," Professor Kirke replied, his eyes widening suggestively, smoking his pipe.

"They're in love?"

"I suspect as much," said the professor, half smiling, the other half of his mouth pulled out of shape by the pipe.

"It's my horse," Coriakin reminded him, a touch dryly.

"They will not hurt him, I think."

"I cannot let them get away with leaving school grounds without permission," Coriakin declared, his hands behind his back. "And I'm going to tell them exactly why it's wrong." He looked over at Professor Kirke and winked. "Tomorrow."

Both old men burst out laughing heartily.

"Well, I think it's rather an occasion to celebrate," decided the headmaster, the first to recover. "How about a glass of warm beer and a cold pork pie?"

"I'm game," the professor told him.

"Ah, but would you like some more tobacco for your pipe first, my friend?"

"Lions alive! Coriakin, my dear fellow, I do believe you've learned to read my mind."

Lucy and Edmund rode on until they came to the grassy shore by the lake Gumpas and Pug used to take them to before being dismissed.

There, Edmund found a good sturdy tree to tie the horse to, and then he and Lucy went off to where the grass was the most comfortable and dry, and laid down flat on their backs, looking up at the stars.

In the open-air, and with the cool breeze off the lake blowing over his face, Edmund finally felt ready to tell Lucy about his past.

"I was three or four years old," he began, his eyes shifting from the stars to Lucy herself, who had turned her head to look at him. "And I agreed to go away with a winter enchantress who was called the White Witch. Her real name was Jadis. I think mine may have been Martin, but I'm not certain. She called me 'ingrate' or 'stupid' so often that I forgot my name. Anyhow, I went with her in exchange for Turkish Delight, which was my favorite sweet."

The corners of Lucy's mouth turned up. "And so you hated it for ever after."

"Pretty much." He twisted his own mouth grimly before going on. "To this day, I'm not sure why Jadis wanted me, but she must have had a reason. And I lived with her, and her wolves (Maugrim and the rest), very unhappily for about five years. I did things…things I don't even like to think about…I learned a great deal of magic, for one…and I stole things…I hurt a talking dog once, very badly. I held him in place long enough so that the witch's wolves could kill him. He'd never done me any harm, Lucy, and I…there was so much blood on the snow…" He forced back a sob; he would be strong and finish the story, he had to.

Lucy pulled herself closer to him. "You didn't want to, and you're so sorry for it I'm sure you would never do anything like that again. You did those things because you felt trapped."

Edmund kissed her forehead. "Yes, terribly trapped."

"But do go on," Lucy urged him.

"She died when I was nine (my memory is a little blank on how). Several times during my five years with her she used to taunt me with the stone knife, the one I carry on my person now. Jadis would say things about how my freedom was bound up in that knife-it wasn't, she was a wicked liar, but I still wanted it when I knew she was dead; so I stole it."

"Why?" Lucy whispered. "Why is it so important to you?"

"Because it's all I had to cling to in my darkest hours. I struggled so hard to get back to my family; I didn't know them, but I think I was hoping they would know _me_. You already know how that ended. I found them and told them everything, and they tried to have me killed. Frank and Helen are the only true father and mother I've ever known, I owe them so much. Loving you as more than a friend feels almost like betraying them."

"It's not," Lucy said, quite confidently.

"How can you be so sure?"

"You love them, and you love me," she explained. "You don't betray the people that you love."

He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and kissed her repeatedly. "Perhaps the Rhindon Investigation Society got one thing right, after all."

"Oh?" Lucy bit her lower lip coyly, lowering her eyelids in a flirtatious manner.

"I don't think we're Peter and Susan, but maybe we are meant to be consorts."

"Yes," murmured Lucy, leaning against his neck.

"We've still got the horse," Edmund said, pressing his lips against her hairline. "What would you say if I asked you to go one more place with me tonight before we headed back to school?"

"In the village we were in before?"

"Yes," said the count, hoping the princess caught his drift. "To see our old friend the lady-centaur."


	16. A Legendary Wedding

The village was very quiet at that hour; not exactly a ghost town or anything, as there were still a few persons going this way and that, though most of these were homeward bound, and a few buildings had a remaining candle or two lit in their windows yet, but it was much stiller and a great deal more shadowy than it had been in the afternoon.

As he had before, Edmund tied the horse's halter to an iron loop hanging from the wall outside of the village. Then he and Lucy had walked into the village itself, headed for the building with the crystal, ivy-covered arch, hand in hand.

The arch glowed like a translucent pearl in the moonlight, the ivy gleaming like leaf-shaped blackish-purple faults scattered all about it, making it even more beautiful simply because it was marred.

"Supposing they aren't open?" Lucy whispered as they entered, walking along the dusty carpet-path once again.

"They should be," Edmund said. "I don't think they would get very many elopements at ten o' clock in the morning." Odd hours, such as now, were probably their best chance.

"That's true," Lucy had to agree.

"It's not too late to change your mind, go back to school, and then marry someone your parents find for you after graduation, you know," he reminded her.

"Edmund!" Lucy scowled, a little dismayed that it was dark and he couldn't entirely see the fierce look (complete with slight evil-eye) she was shooting him. "Of course it is. I couldn't do that! Not knowing _you_ love me. Why, we would both be miserable!"

"Bother your complaining, Lu!" retorted Edmund, not seriously, the corners of his mouth curling up in the darkness. "I was only bringing up all your options."

"Oh, so you wouldn't be miserable?" Lucy asked, her eyebrows going up, again barely visible in the poor lighting.

Edmund gave in. "Yes, I would be miserable. Happy now?"

Lucy squeezed his hand. "I will be."

When they reached the dark wall of reddish-brown stone, they found a dim oil lamp lit and the golden lady-centaur, and an older silvery-bearded man with light skin that kind of glittered automatically when he stepped away from the oil lamp's light (he was a star, like Coriakin and Lilliandil), tidying up the area.

The star was sweeping with a tall wooden broom and the lady-centaur was using a silver hoof-pick to remove a bit of mold growing on the back wall.

They both stopped what they were doing at once and turned around, smiling, when Edmund cleared his throat, coughing suggestively into his free palm, the other hand still clinging to one of Lucy's.

"Well, hallo again!" cried the centaur, recognizing them even in the dimness.

"We…" Lucy began, blushing heavily. "We would like to be married now, if you please."

"You owe me six silver coins," the centaur said out of the corner of her mouth to the star.

"Yes, I see now, you're never wrong." The star nodded agreeably.

"What did you bet on?" Edmund wanted to know.

"She mentioned meeting you both before, coming in here and not knowing what the purpose of this place was. We had a wager going regarding if you would come back and marry; I said you wouldn't, she said you would. I should have known she would win-she always does. She hasn't lost a wager yet." The star did not look cross, but rather, resigned, and even a bit endeared, as if the centaur were like a niece or granddaughter to him, someone he did not truly mind losing to.

"I told you they loved each other," she added, a bit cheekily.

The star sighed and decided to focus more intently on the pair that had come to be wedded. "My name is Ramandu, have you ever heard of me?"

"No," said Edmund.

"Never," Lucy confessed.

Ramandu's expression became slightly disappointed, almost offended as well. "Yes, I suppose you wouldn't know much about the old marriage procedures here in the Lantern Waste. If you did, you would have known that you could not find a star more learned in law and proper procedures as yours truly."

"I'm sure you do know a lot," said Lucy, very kindly.

"How much does the ceremony cost?" Edmund asked, realizing that Ramandu was a very official sort of chap and that he himself didn't have very much on him save for a single gold coin, three silver coins, and four copper, in one of his pockets.

"We do it as a public service. But if you want a short wedding song written for you, there may be a surcharge; especially if you want it to rhyme with the bridegroom's name."

Edmund crinkled his forehead. A _song_? Seriously? "Well, as tempting as that sounds, I don't think you're going to be able to rhyme anything with 'Edmund Pevensie', so I suppose we'll do fine without a song."

Lucy put her free hand to her mouth to keep from laughing.

"Did you say 'Pevensie'?" asked Ramandu, thoughtfully, arching a pale-coloured eyebrow. "You're of the royal family?"

Edmund was a little afraid that the star would refuse to perform the marriage if he knew that Lucy was the princess. Who in their right minds would let a high-born eastern princess throw her life away on an unwanted, renamed northern count? But this wasn't something he could lie about; he couldn't marry Lucy under false pretences.

On the wall, Edmund could see the high king's much too sternly painted face glaring down at him, his serious eyes burning into him like a nagging conscience.

The count took a deep breath and said, "She's King Frank's daughter."

"Oh, how romantic!" sighed the lady-centaur, nearly rearing up on her hind-legs with excitement. "A secret royal marriage away from court; just like King Peter and Queen Susan!"

Edmund rolled his eyes. Did even his _wedding_ have to be traced back to the bloody Golden Age? At least Lucy's face bore a contented expression at the centaur's words. If she was happy, that was all that really mattered to the count; he could deal with minor annoyances for the sake of his future wife's pleasure.

Ramandu explained the procedures of the ceremony, mentioning also that the lady-centaur was to be their witness.

It was a most peculiar ceremony, Edmund thought; but, then, he had expected that and so was not terribly surprised. All the same, he couldn't see exactly what the _point_ of most the odd traditions actually were, willing though he was to go along with them.

They had no rings of their own to exchange, but, for the look and over-all symbolism of the thing, Ramandu loaned Lucy a silver ring to slip on Edmund's left hand, and the centaur loaned Edmund a pearl-encrusted ring to put on Lucy's. These were of course returned to their proper owners when the ceremony was completed, and were too big for Edmund and Lucy to wear comfortably anyhow.

Most of the ceremony went smoothly enough from start to finish, except for one little thing which gave Edmund a most dreadful turn, so that for a second he almost thought he wouldn't be able to marry Lucy after all.

The cast-iron-and-polished-glass lamppost model Lucy had noticed the first time they'd been there and wondered about did indeed turn out to have a purpose aside from idyllic decoration.

Basically, at one point, the couple was supposed to close their eyes and say their vows silently to themselves while Ramandu lit the lamppost. Tradition held that the flame was supposed to keep burning till both the bride and bridegroom had finished with their silent vows.

Edmund, never comfortable around flames of any sort, even well-watched ones, didn't close his eyes all the way, peeping at the miniature lamppost from under his lowered eyelashes.

And so he noticed, before Ramandu or the centaur could say so, that part of the flame (there were two separate wicks that burned together side by side within the glass) had gone out. One wick burned brightly enough, but the other was now a curling wisp of smoke.

Both Ramandu and the centaur seemed at a loss. Neither wanted to ruin the happiness of the couple they were attempting to marry, but tradition held that a marriage was invalid if either of the flames didn't burn during the time allotted.

Thanks to the star's explanation prior to starting, Edmund already knew this. He opened his eyes all the way and looked over at Lucy, wondering what her reaction was, only to find that her eyes were still shut. She was wholly unaware that anything had gone wrong to begin with. A smile curled on her lips, her expression peaceful-even beautiful-in the light of the remaining half of the flame. A garland of scarlet poppies, given to her by the lady-centaur as a bridal-wreath, encircled her perfectly relaxed brow.

It seemed to Edmund that he had a choice. Either he could do nothing, let the marriage be declared invalid, and hope that they would have another chance to return to the village and make another attempt-if that was even allowed, or he could merely-seeing as Lucy hadn't noticed anything amiss-solve the entire problem by relighting the wick himself.

Of course it would have to be _fire_ of all things, he thought, his fear making him very irritable.

His hand shook, and he knew he couldn't possibly do it.

Even as he reached over to unhook the tiny golden latch that held the glass over the flame in place, he could feel his body's desire to start hyperventilating and didn't know how long he could fight against it.

There were several beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. His stomach twisted and untwisted in and out of the most painful of knots.

That was that, then; no wedding for them tonight.

But, just as the count was about to give it all up as lost, his eyes shifted over to Lucy again. For _her_ , he could do this; for her he could do anything, no matter how frightening or painful.

Ramandu opened his mouth to say something. In all likelihood the star was about to tell Lucy to open her eyes and, regretfully, show her the burned-out flame.

But Edmund put one finger to his lips, signaling for them both to be quiet and not disturb Lucy. Then, ever so slowly, he lifted up a near-by loose burning tallow candle from its holder and relit the wick. It took immediately, flaring up as Edmund shut the glass back into place and refastened the latch.

"Is he allowed to do that?" whispered the centaur to Ramandu.

"Well," he whispered back, shrugging his shoulders. "There's no rule or law that says he _isn't_. The law clearly states that neither the one performing the marriage, nor any witness, is allowed to interfere; but there's nothing written down against the bridegroom doing so. And he relit it before we said anything, which means, my dear, we hold our peace, and the marriage stands."

Willing his hands to stop shaking and spilling hot tallow all over the floor, just narrowly missing his own boots, Edmund put the candle back in its place and tried to make his breathing normal again.

There was nothing to be afraid of, he kept telling himself, nothing at all; he had done the right thing and it was all over now, thanks be to the Lion for that. The count then found himself wondering if there would ever be a time when he did not hate and fear fire with a passion. Very probably, there wouldn't, but at least he'd over-powered it this time. When it had mattered the most, Edmund had found a way to keep in control of himself.

Lucy opened her eyes and turned to face Edmund, never knowing what he had just done to be with her.

The final part of the ceremony, after the vows had been said both silently and out loud and the star had declared the marriage official by the power given him by Aslan and by the traditions of Narnia and the Lantern Waste, consisted of Ramandu giving the couple a single-very tiny-red fruit each, which they were to put into each other's mouths.

This fruit was called a fire-berry; Edmund thought it quite ironic, but the namesake seemed due more to its vivid colour than its taste, as it was tight-skinned like a grape and its red juice was cool and sweet, not spicy or hot.

When the young man who was practically her husband now put the little berry against her lips, Lucy was certain she had never been happier in her whole life. Nothing had ever tasted better, more pure, more refreshingly delightful, than that fire-berry. And when she offered hers, in turn, to Edmund, she saw he savored it-and the moment in itself-by the look he gave her and the gentle way he lovingly (albeit a touch teasingly) reached up and plucked at a loose petal on her garland as he swallowed the tiny fruit.

The wedding finished with, the young husband and wife bid goodbye to Ramandu and the lady-centuar.

Lucy embraced the centaur and promised to come back and visit one day, and planted a kiss on the cheek of Ramandu the star. Edmund shook both their hands and thanked them for their time and services, agreeing, upon their request and reminder that their doors were always open to them, to accompany his wife on her future visit to see them, whenever that might be.

On that note, he wasn't sure if Ramandu could predict the future or not, for while Edmund had heard (and thought it most likely fraud) that certain persons could see what was to come by reading the stars, no one had ever said anything in regards to whether or not the stars already knew all the information so-called prophets seemed to gather from them. He would have asked, but he was distracted (he had just been married, after all), as well as a little afraid of offending the lady-centaur since many of the so-called prophets were of her race, her species.

As they left, Lucy took one look back at the somber portrait of Peter and Susan, and a new thought struck her; one she shared with Edmund as they headed back through the village to where they'd left Coriakin's horse.

"Edmund, I've been thinking," she mused.

"About what, Love?" He smiled at her.

She blushed, walking a little closer to her husband, who had slowed down, noticing her struggle against her limp to keep up with him in spite of her attempt to make light of it. "Well, about High King Peter."

"Golly, that's a shock," said Edmund, nudging her playfully.

Lucy giggled. "Oh, Ed!" Shaking her head, she added, "Honestly! Anyhow, I was looking at the picture on the wall and thinking about how the legends say he left Narnia's world to go back to his own-if he survived, I mean."

"That part's a fairy-tale, if I ever heard one, Lu."

She cocked her head. "Edmund, don't you believe in other worlds? Knowing about magic, at least, I thought you might have. Andrew Ketterley does; he told he me was trying to transport Eustace into one when he turned him into a dragon by mistake."

"Maybe that's because there wasn't any other world to send him to," Edmund said stubbornly, though not unkindly.

"There must be other worlds," insisted Lucy. "Why, Aslan's Country, which almost all Narnians believe in, can't be part of our own world. It wouldn't make sense, if it were."

"I suppose that's true," he gave in, a tad begrudgingly.

"So I wonder," Lucy went on, trying to get to her point: "if there is another world, namely the one Peter came from before he saved Narnia and became high king, then, do you think…?"

"Think what, Lu?"

"That it could have a different time from ours," she said breathlessly, unable to hide her excitement.

"I don't know, maybe."

"If it did, why wouldn't…I mean, maybe…just maybe…what if Peter (my ancestor) is still alive someplace?"

Now that idea _did_ shock him. Edmund stopped dead in his tracks, furrowed his brow, and half-blurted, half-laughed out, " _What_?"

"He _could_ be," she pressed on, excited. "What if the stories that say he became a doctor in that other world-in England-are true? What if he's still there _now_? I bet he misses Susan dreadfully. Think, all this time without her, poor fellow. I don't think he would remarry, do you?"

"How should I know?" said Edmund, starting to walk again, Lucy limping along slowly at his side. "I never knew the man, if he existed. And Lu, forgive me for saying this, but you didn't either."

Lucy disagreed; she felt she knew, from stories and from her dreams and thoughts, the high king of old Narnia's Golden Age very well indeed. It was her wedding night, though, so she decided she didn't want to argue about it. What she wanted was to walk alongside her husband, to feel the cool night air on her face, to know that she was loved and was giving love in return, and to get back to the horse so that she could rest her bad ankle for a bit.

They walked in silence the rest of the way till they reached the horse and Edmund untied him.

He climbed onto the horse's dapple-gray back, then helped Lucy up after him. "There you are, Wife."

She thought she heard an uncertain satisfaction in his pleasure in addressing her as such for the first time. He was delighted and hesitant all at once. And she was absolutely over-whelmed with the familiarity and rightness the word seemed to entail as it tickled her ears.

Sighing happily, Lucy slipped her arms around her husband's waist as he gave the horse a light kick to make it begin a steady trot in the general direction of the school.

It was probably amongst the loveliest of any rides Lucy remembered in her whole life, precious little else even comparable to it.

This wonderful ride seemed to go on for a longer period of time than was strictly necessary, and Lucy gathered that Edmund was taking the long way back to the school on purpose, enjoying her company, and the night, and the way her head-as it grew slightly weary-dropped down onto the back of his shoulder.

But at last they did reach the school, and with some reluctance, Edmund took the horse back to its padlock. They both tended to the creature, giving it a rub-down and some extra oats as a thank you present for bearing them all that way and back.

Struggling against mad laughter and utterly out of breath from the effort, they made their way passed the only window that did not have the curtains drawn, aiming to get back into the main building and to Lucy's room again undetected.

Looking out of the window, for the one open window was in his own bedroom, Headmaster Coriakin pretended not to notice them returning.

Tomorrow, he reminded himself; tomorrow I'll give them a piece of my mind; tonight, well, tonight I'll keep on turning a blind-eye and let them do as they please, just this once.


	17. Misunderstandings

"I can't believe no one saw us," Lucy whispered, watching as Edmund closed the door to her room behind them.

Edmund shrugged his shoulders. "I can. Everyone's sleeping. And, remember, the sharp-eyed Macready's out of it."

"Luckily so," said Lucy. She could think of very little that would have been a bigger disgrace than having been caught sneaking in and out of the school by the sour-faced girls' dormitory housekeeper.

"Hmm, very," agreed the count, a touch awkwardly.

Lucy rubbed her arms. "So what happens now?"

"Well, um," began Edmund, even more awkwardly.

She rubbed her arms again and shivered. This all still felt quite surreal; maybe she would wake up in a moment to find it was only a dream. But it wasn't like any dream she'd ever had before.

"You're trembling, Lu," her husband noted, taking a step towards her.

The little fire that had crackled in the grate when they left was all embers now, so the room wasn't exactly toasty warm upon their return, but it wasn't merely being cold that made her shake all over like that.

"Come here," whispered Edmund, one of his arms slipping around her waist, his hand gently stroking the small of her back. "You're cold?" he asked.

"Not right now," Lucy blurted out truthfully, for her husband felt warm enough.

He kissed his wife's lips; then her cheek, her chin, her neck, and finally once very lightly on the nose, which made her giggle. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him in return on the mouth and cheek.

After a bit, Lucy felt a distinctive tug on the tunic she was wearing. At first she was confused, uncertain of what she was supposed to do, until it came to her at last that she was supposed to lift her arms up and let her husband pull the tunic over her head.

Well, she thought to herself briefly, I knew I would have to return his clothes sooner or later, but I didn't imagine it would be in this fashion; how strange life is!

The next moment, the tunic Lucy had been wearing was on the floor and she was standing in naught but the thin, loose shift she wore under it. For a spilt-second she was cold, because Edmund had pulled away to remove his own top layer, but she was quickly thawed because he immediately pulled her back into his arms when he had finished.

They kissed again; and he fiddled playfully with a small piece of her hair that hung over her shoulder.

Suddenly, without much warning, Edmund lifted Lucy up off her feet and carried her over to the bed, placing her down on it.

Next came a pause during which they stared at each other uncomfortably. Lucy's eyes asked, "What now?" and Edmund's appeared to be contemplating an answer.

It occurred to Edmund that maybe he should go back to his own room and let this all happen another time, wedding night or not. It was just so bizarre to think that prior to a few hours ago they hadn't even known they both were madly in love with each other; now they were husband and wife, and alone together in a different way than they were used to. This was happening rather fast. And yet, Edmund knew it was he himself that had been largely propelling the speed. _He'd_ asked her to marry him, then _he'd_ relit that wedding fire when it went out, and it was _him_ who had shut the door and removed part of her clothes.

True, Lucy was going along with all this, and there was no shame in spending the night with one's wife, but he couldn't help feeling a little unsure. Lucy was an innocent, not to mention his best friend _and_ the daughter of the king and queen he owed his life and happy parts of childhood to; that was a lot of pressure.

It was going to be hard enough to tell Frank and Helen that they were legally married in the first place; he couldn't even _fathom_ having to tell them it was consummated, too.

However, he didn't want to leave his bride and go back to his own room. And, more importantly, Edmund was pretty sure _she_ didn't want him to leave, either.

In what Lucy thought to be surprising speed, Edmund had unfastened her belt and pulled the breeches she was borrowing down to her ankles. She slipped them the rest of the way off, watching out of the corner of one eye as he fumbled with his own belt.

Edmund took the stone knife's ice-blue sheath off of the belt he dropped to the floor along with his breeches and placed it on Lucy's writing desk. He had no intention of wearing _that_ to bed tonight, and yet it felt odd to just leave it on the floor in a messy clothing pile.

Lucy withdrew further into the bed and its clothes, sensing that Edmund intended to climb in with her.

The room was so dark now, the embers more or less all gone, the curtains drawn. She didn't see him ease himself down beside her, but she felt a give in the mattress and scooted towards it.

Within seconds they were in each other's arms again. Edmund did murmur something along the lines of asking her if she wanted him to leave, that they didn't have to do this tonight if she'd rather not. Lucy claimed afterwards that she hadn't understood him, and as she was honest to a fault there was no reason to disbelieve her. She also said, however, that even if she had understood she wouldn't have wanted him to leave unless _he'd_ really wanted to; then, she claimed, she would have supported him.

Regardless, the point is, Lucy didn't send him away and he didn't leave on his own, and so they spent their wedding night the way any husband and wife would have.

Around dawn, when it was still very dark, save for a bit of early-day light slipping through the slightest gap in the drawn curtains, Lucy awoke. She was wrapped in the arms of her husband, who was still soundly asleep.

Her index finger sort of itched where Andrew Ketterley's ring was. Which drew her attention to the ring itself, which, in turn, made her think deeply, for the first time since she'd found out Edmund loved her, about magic. She had no intentions of ever, ever being a sorceress; not only was it wrong, against Narnia and Aslan, as she had always known it was, but, after hearing about Edmund's childhood, imprisoned by a witch and almost burned for it upon escaping, there was nothing that seemed like a more disgusting idea to entertain. Still, there was one bit of magic she wondered if she ought to have used: the beauty spell.

Lucy didn't really want beauty so badly now; she had Edmund's heart _without_ it. Yet it pricked at her that her own husband, even though he loved her, didn't think she was pretty (she, despite now knowing the truth about how he'd kept that locket and, for lack of a better word, pined for her for so long, somehow hadn't picked up on the fact that he hadn't meant what he'd said that day at Cair). She could accept that, and, mostly, she already had, only she wondered if her beloved would ever wish she was beautiful.

What would happen if she got up and burned that page right now? Put an end to the doubt once and for all? Would she feel relief? Or, later perhaps, would she regret it?

Edmund let out a deep breath (almost a snore) in his sleep. Lucy twisted her head round and smiled at him. She would take one last look at that page right now; he would never know, she would have peace of mind, and, most likely, she would find it wasn't half so tempting as she had once thought it to be, though she feared what would happen if that was not the case.

Gingerly, and with a little more trouble than she anticipated, Lucy freed herself from Edmund's slumbering grip and went to fetch the looking-glass page.

In his sleep, Edmund grunted.

Then, page in hand, she crawled back into bed, sighed, and stared at it, wondering what to do with the blasted thing. Use it, even though it seemed she didn't have to? Burn it, even though there was no fire currently lit (that was no excuse, she wasn't the one with a fear of fire, she could easily start it up if she had to)? Rip it right down the middle? Crumble it up? Put it away again?

Beginning to wake, Edmund sensed something amiss. His eyes still closed, he tried to embrace his wife, only to find she wasn't lying in his arms anymore. He felt around for her, opened his eyes all the way, and finally spotted her staring down at some fairly large piece of paper she held in her hands.

"Hey," he teased, frowning for emphasis, "did I _say_ you could get up and leave me?"

Lucy jumped. Turning her head, she said, "Oh, Ed!" She hastily lowered the page into the folds of the closest blanket. "I didn't know you were awake."

"I wasn't," he yawned, stretching an arm. "What's up, Lu?"

"N-nothing." Stupid looking-glass page!

What was she thinking? Bringing that horrible magic out in front of someone who had been a witch's slave as a child! How ignorant and cold hearted had _that_ been? Oh, how she wished she had thought of the possibility of him waking on his own and finding her with it _before_ she brought it out!

"What have you got there?" asked Edmund curiously, smiling and inquisitive, scooting closer to her.

"It's…" stammered Lucy, biting her lower lip.

He picked the page up out of the blanket. She didn't stop him, though her face went red and she thought she wanted to die right then and there.

Edmund's smile remained up till the moment he looked down at the page. His eyes widened and his forehead crinkled. A beauty spell? What the devil did she have that for? Where did she get it from in the first place?

"Lu?" Glancing back at her, he saw that she had her hands covering her face.

It all became clear as crystal in that moment. The page must have come from that swine, Andrew Ketterley. And Lucy, poor, misguided, insecure sweetheart, was considering using it. But why would she even…?

"Oh, Aslan, I'm so sorry!" exclaimed Edmund, comprehension dawning on him. "Lucy, sweet, this isn't because of what I said that day back at Cair…the day you went for a walk in the apple orchard by yourself…is it?"

Slowly removing her hands to reveal a small, almost childlike expression on her anxious face, Lucy nodded.

He hadn't thought his Lucy had taken those words so deeply to heart, honest he hadn't! Of course he had seen, in passing, that it hurt her, but as she was so quick to forgive, Edmund had naturally assumed she was over it. And she wasn't. All this time, his stupid 'No' had been inside her head and he never really saw it.

"Look here, Lu," said Edmund softly, handing the page back to her. "You don't need to change; magically or not. I didn't mean what I said that day."

"If I was to ask you that same question again now," Lucy wanted to know, relieved that he wasn't angry about the magic, "what would you say?"

Reaching out and touching the side of her face, gingerly tucking a piece of hair behind one of her ears, running his fingers along the contour of her chin, he whispered, "I would say that you are, without a doubt, the most beautiful person I've ever known."

Lucy tossed the looking-glass page away, letting it fall to the floor at the bedside, caring not at all what became of it now.

More in love than ever, the princess kissed her husband repeatedly, and he, in turn, slipped his arms all the way around her, rolled over so that she was under him, and pulled the velvet comforter over their heads.

At one point, Lucy's left hand stuck out from under the comforter; and the ring on her index finger was feeling very, very loose.

What she had not known was that magic is only as powerful as desire. As long as she had secretly desired the use of magic, no matter how small or for what reason, Mr. Ketterley's ring clung to her finger like part of her own flesh. Now that she wanted nothing at all to do with magic, not even the beauty spell, it had no hold on her.

The magic ring dropped to the floor with a faint _clink_. Her hand felt chilly, so Lucy pulled it back into where it was warm, vaguely aware that she was feeling somehow lighter, both in hand and in heart.

The pair over-slept; the time to wake and prepare for their morning classes came and went without their notice, both dozing as deeply as if they hadn't a care in the world.

Lucy was dreaming that she and Edmund were back at Cair Paravel, racing through a marble hallway; and her limp was gone, so she could easily keep up with him.

Their absence, unlike in the past night, did not go unnoticed. Professor Kirke was keen to see them that morning, and was aware at once of their usual seats being empty in his class. Jill Pole wanted to ask Edmund and Lucy if they had any idea about what was to be done for Eustace, or at least knew where in the woods Dragon-Eustace was, because she was worried about him. She was disappointed when neither of them turned up, and she hoped all was well with them.

Marjorie Preston noticed Lucy's absence, too. She had been intending to ask Lucy if she had spoken to Edmund for her yet; Anne Featherstone was being a real brick, very encouraging and supportive, and it had been splendid of her to find out that the count of the Western March (sometimes referred to as the Western _Marsh_ ) fancied her to begin with, but it was all moot, she supposed, if Edmund didn't even know she returned his feelings.

She wondered why neither the count nor the princess were turning up for class. It occurred to her that perhaps Lucy had taken ill without warning-maybe with a cold or a stomach ache-and couldn't leave her room for the day. There was something going around; both Mrs. Macready the housekeeper and Margaret the maid were sick. It would be just like Edmund to be giving up his own time for education to take care of his friend, which would explain why he wasn't in class either.

So Marjorie decided to skip her next class and pay Lucy a visit. After all, the Narnian Princess had been so good and kind and loyal to her; she felt it would be a terrible injustice _not_ to pay her good friend a visit, especially if she wasn't feeling well.

Marjorie did knock once, very softly, when she reached Lucy's door but didn't want to knock too loudly in case the princess had a headache. So she cracked the door open and peeked in. She guessed that if Edmund had been there taking care of Lucy, he'd gone out for a breath of fresh air or to get something before she had turned up.

Everything was silent and still; you could just barely hear the far-off ticking of a grandfather clock in some distant corridor. The room was sort of dim, and she noticed right away that there was no fire lit.

How terrible, thought Marjorie indignantly, the school staff can't even be bothered to send someone to light a decent fire for their _princess_ when she's sick!

Her thoughts of deep pity for her dear friend did not last much longer, though. After a few moments of gaping about the untidiness of the place, breeches and tunics tossed on the floor any which way, wondering why Ivy-since she wasn't sick-hadn't come in and picked up, Marjorie came to the side of the bed, and looked down.

Lucy Pevensie was there all right, sleeping, but she didn't look at all unwell, and she wasn't alone; she was wrapped up in Edmund's arms.

Neither of them were decently dressed, both covered only by thin, loose shifts that had the collar-strings in the front untied and open; and they both had ruffled hair.

Now Marjorie could be, at times, something of a passive simpleton (in her dealings with Anne Featherstone, for example), but she was not truly stupid, and it was quite apparent what Edmund and Lucy had been doing. Understandably, she was upset and hurt. She didn't know anything about their wedding the night before, or that Anne Featherstone had twisted Edmund's words and that he had never liked her.

How could Lucy have done this to her? She had thought they were friends, good friends! And now this?

She looked down at the floor. Well, the scene in the bed certainly explained the clothes-heap, didn't it? And what a mess…Say, what was that piece of paper over on the other side of the bedroom floor? And that shinny round thing glittering not too far off from it?

She went over and picked up the paper. It was some sort of page from a book; there was a looking-glass on it and a lot of odd scrambled up words, almost like a lousy poem, or a poorly-written chant of some kind. And the shinny thing was a little ring that changed colours from yellow to green in the light depending on which way she moved it.

These strange items still in hand, Marjorie walked back over to the other side of the bed and looked down at Edmund. How had he so completely forgotten her?

In his sleep, Edmund's lips moved, as if he were saying something.

Curious in spite of herself, Marjorie leaned forward to listen.

"Lucy," he murmured.

It was only natural that a young man should have been thinking about his wife-even subconsciously-on the morning after his wedding night, but there was no way Marjorie could have understood that, not with her patchy knowledge of what had taken place.

Angry tears pricked her eyes. This was all Lucy's fault. The count had liked her, he _had_! And for no reason at all, Lucy had gone and taken him to her bed. After she had promised to speak to him on her behalf, no less!

She didn't blame Edmund, not really. He hadn't even known she felt the same way, and here was another girl-reasonably attractive and of royal birth-willing to go all the way with him.

If he had known how I felt about him, Marjorie reasoned, he wouldn't have; I'm sure he wouldn't have.

She was about to start feeling very sorry for herself and proceed with her crying, but was distracted by a humming noise. It seemed to be coming from the green-and-yellow ring; and it got just a little louder every time she stepped closer to Lucy's writing desk.

Laid out on the desk was a funny-looking knife in an ice-blue sheath.

Although she couldn't understand _what_ , Marjorie thought there was something the knife and ring had in common and decided, on impulse, to snatch up the stone knife as well as the looking-glass page and the ring. She hadn't the foggiest idea what she was going to do with these things, yet she felt compelled to take them out of the room with her.

Casting one last teary-eyed glance at the girl she'd thought was her friend resting in the arms of the boy she fancied, she dashed out of the room, careful to shut the door quietly behind her.

Marjorie had no intention of returning to her classes in bitter tears (as soon as she was out of Lucy's room, they had come streaming down like rain), so she went to her own room.

Angrily, she sobbed and threw the looking-glass page, humming ring, and stone knife on the floor.

The bedroom door opened and before Marjorie could bark that she wanted to be alone, a familiar voice asked what on earth was the matter with her.

"Anne?" she mumbled, rubbing at her red eyes as she turned to face her roommate.

"What are you crying about?" asked Anne Featherstone. "Why are you in here now anyway? I just came in to change my shoes; these Calormen-style boots are lovely, but there's only so much pressure my toes can take on a daily basis, you know."

"Oh, Anne," wept Marjorie, glad that Anne was still her friend, now that she'd lost Lucy. "It's all been in vain."

"What has?" Anne's eyes widened with an innocence that anyone less distressed than Marjorie was at the moment would have thought was too heavily put-on and clearly fake.

"Well, Lucy…" she began, crying too hard to go on.

"Dear me," said Anne, "I hope she wasn't cruel; princesses can be very snobby."

"No, it's not anything like that," Marjorie corrected her, swallowing hard. "It's worse. Much worse. Do you remember how you suggested I ask Lucy to speak to Edmund for me?"

"Yes, of course," she answered, a mite too brightly. "How did my advice go, by the way?"

"Horrible!" she cried.

Anne frowned.

"Oh, forgive me, Anne, it's not _your_ fault," Marjorie amended, shaking her head. "I asked Lucy to speak to him for me, and she said she would."

"Then why are you crying, you goose?" laughed Anne. "You should be thrilled."

"I was," she told her. "But then, oh, you don't know what she did."

"Tell me!" Anne urged her.

"She slept with him."

"What?" Anne put her hand to her heart. "You're joking!"

"Oh," sobbed Marjorie, "I wish I was!"

"Are you sure? How did you find out?" Anne put a 'comforting' hand on Marjorie's shoulder.

"I walked in on them."

"During?" gasped Anne, this time sounding almost genuinely shocked.

"No!" said Marjorie, turning a little red at the implication. " _After_. They were in Lucy's bed, barely dressed."

"I'm so sorry," she told her, a hum of 'sympathy' coming out of her throat.

"I just don't understand," Marjorie said, "why she would do something like that. I thought we were such great friends, her and I! Why do you suppose she would betray me like that, Anne?"

Anne sighed. "I think I know why, but I fear you won't like the answer."

"Why? Oh, do tell me!"

"Well," said Anne, flicking a lock of her white-blond hair over one shoulder and tossing her head back, "Lucy and Edmund have always been very close. Edmund's always been at her side, during everything. Have you noticed she rarely lets him go anywhere without her? They sit together all the time, eat together, study together. I'll wager they're better known as 'Lucy and Edmund' than as individuals called 'Edmund' and 'Lucy'."

"So?" Marjorie furrowed her brow and pouted.

"I think that perhaps when Lucy found out that there was a chance that Edmund could have a kind of relationship with you that he didn't have with her, she got jealous."

"Oh!"

"Yes, that must be it. So, instead of helping you, she pushed herself on him."

"How jolly mean of her!"

"That it was," sighed Anne, her eyes drifting down to the items Marjorie had thrust onto the floor earlier. "But, I say, what are those things sprawled out down there?"

Marjorie felt a little ashamed as she admited, "I sort of took them from Lucy's room. Please don't think little of me for it, Anne, I was just so angry and I thought…I felt like taking something."

"Completely understandable," she said, giving her a 'compassionate' smile. "But do you mind if I take a look?"

"Not at all."

Anne examined the beauty spell first. "Marjorie! Do you know what this is?"

"A mediocre piece of poetry on very reflective, shinny paper?" she guessed.

"It's a spell!" gasped Anne. "For making a person beautiful. And this ring!" She turned the ring round and round in the light, watching it change colours. "The metal doesn't seem like anything from nature, if you catch my meaning."

"I'm afraid I don't," Marjorie admited, feeling quite stupid and uneducated.

"This knife is magic, too, I think!"

"Magic?" exclaimed Marjorie, breathless, blinking rapidly in surprise.

"That's what these things are," Anne insisted, lowering her voice. "I've an uncle a few times removed who's a witch-hunter; I would know."

"Oh, goodness!" She could think of nothing else to say to that.

"By Jove, I believe Narnia's princess-Lucy Pevensie, I mean-is nothing more than a witch or a sorceress!"

Marjorie's hands flew to her mouth in horror. "No! She can't be. I couldn't believe that of her."

Anne put her hands on her hips. "Well, honestly! You wouldn't have thought she would have slept with the boy you fancied for no other reason than spite before today, would you have?"

Marjorie hung her head, defeated.

"She's had everyone fooled with her fake innocence. We are all victims of her witchery. At least we know now how it was she won Edmund over."

"How?" asked Marjorie, still rather clueless due to being so over-whelmed by everything.

"She must have used this beauty spell," Anne explained, sort of dramatically, "to make herself beautiful so that your count couldn't possibly resist her."

"She…she looked exactly the same to me," stammered Marjorie, sheepishly.

Anne rolled her eyes. "Don't be daft! Of course she did. No clever witch would alter their appearance for all to see; the transformation would be a dead give-away. Most likely, the little slut did something so that she looks different in Edmund's eyes alone."

"The shameless hussy!" exclaimed Marjorie, clenching her fists. "What are we going to do, Anne? We can't let poor Edmund be trapped inside of a mind-controlling enchantment for ever."

Anne's next smile spread slowly, like that of a floating crocodile. "I know what we must do. We're going to have to report her as a witch."

"You mean to Headmaster Coriakin?"

Snorting, Anne snapped, "Of course not. The Headmaster-and many of the teachers here-have all taken to her, they'll never believe anything against her. All the more so as she's the daughter of Narnia's monarch. We'll have to appeal to the witch-hunters, holy centaurs, and great high courts themselves."

"Must it come to that?" whimpered Marjorie, feeling frightened. "Couldn't we just, I don't know, talk to her and…and make her see reason…maybe she would release him from the spell if…if only I could get through to her."

"She's a _witch_ , for pity's sake!" Anne stamped her foot impatiently. "You cannot reason with her. This is the only way. Unless you would prefer every student in this school to be in danger of her evil enchantments; your beloved count included." Then she added, "And do you remember that mark-grubber boy, Eustace Clarence? How do you know Lucy didn't do something to him? They _say_ he went home to his mother, but she might have been behind his disappearance. Maybe he never left at all; maybe he's still here, invisible, and it's up to us to make him-and who knows what else-visible again by putting an end to all the princess's black magic."

This was tough. Marjorie didn't want to start a ruckus, and in spite of how much she hated Lucy now (she _hated_ her), she felt as if she didn't really want her to get into _too_ much trouble.

But then there was Edmund to think about. She didn't like the idea of the handsome count being trapped under a witch's spell, being summoned to the bed of a royal-blooded enchantress. No, she wanted to save him; to set him free. Maybe he would be so relieved to be free of his curse that he would thank her with a kiss! The thought made her blush. She and Anne would be heroines! Everyone would be so grateful to them. And Lucy, well, probably she would have to serve a prison-term or something and be forced to give up all her magic before she could be let out; serve the little harlot right, too! It had never occurred to Marjorie to research what really happened to convicted witches; and she trusted Anne Featherstone completely.

"So are we going to do this?" Anne asked, flapping the magic page. "We have the evidence right here. Are you with me or not?"

Marjorie nodded. "I'm with you."


	18. We Guessed Wrong

By the time Edmund and Lucy had woken up, gotten dressed (it was lucky that Lucy's lost trunk had resulted in her borrowing Edmund's clothes, for if such hadn't been the case, he would have had to wear the same clothes from the day before, but as circumstances were, they both got to put on something clean and fresh), and hurried to join their peers, everyone was already in the dinning hall to take the noon meal.

When Lucy saw her face in the reflective, mirrored walls of the dinning hall, she almost got quite a start. For a second, she didn't recognize herself because the image she cast was somehow prettier than usual; not beautiful in the way the looking-glass page would have made her, bearing the ideal sense of human beauty in its entirety, but her own sort of glowing prettiness from within. Her whole face was aglow, beaming; every angle of her seemed brighter, more real, more secure. Edmund's was changed a bit, too, for his face was as glowing as her own, his smile wider, and his step lighter. Lucy was certain that if not for her limp, her movements would have been just as springy as her husband's were. Love had a better, stronger beautifying effect than any spell ever could.

Caspian even came up to Edmund and, instead of asking where he'd been like he had intended to, asked, in clear puzzlement, why he could suddenly see all of Edmund's teeth when he smiled now. Was this really the same grave-faced boy who sat sullenly through meetings with the Rhindon Investigation Society and was supposed to be this generation's Queen Susan? He seemed so different!

The couple sat down at their usual table with Jill Pole, who was eager to see them. She asked where they'd been and Lucy answered, truthfully enough, that they'd both over-slept, not mentioning that such had occurred in the same room.

"Any word regarding Eustace?" Jill whispered, now that she knew they were all right. "I've been worried about him."

"He's still in the woods someplace," Edmund told her in a low voice. "No one knows what to do for him yet."

"Oh," said Jill, clearly disappointed. "Well, do you know where he is, at least? I want to talk to him."

"He can't speak," Edmund pointed out.

Jill's brow furrowed. "So what? _I_ can, and he can listen."

"True enough." The count couldn't argue with that. "Last I heard he was near the lamppost."

"Oh, dear," sighed Jill, even more disappointed now. "That's well off of school-grounds."

"You could ask Headmaster Coriakin to let you go see him," Lucy softly suggested. "You're one of the few people who knows what really happened to him, after all."

"That's true," said Jill, brightening, wondering why she hadn't thought of that herself. "I'll ask after classes are finished for today." She looked down at her plate, then added, "Well, I can't finish this. I never did like stag-meat venison. I'm going to throw it out."

"I'm with you, Pole," said a cheerless voice, belonging to none other than Puddleglum. "I can't abide stag, either. And the school's served it at least four times since I've been here. My plan for sobering up is working very, very well indeed."

As both the girl and the Marsh-wiggle rose from their places, Lucy asked, "Jill, where's Marjorie?"

Jill snorted. "I don't know what's wrong with her today. She missed a lot of her classes, and now she's sitting over at Anne Featherstone's table, acting like some kind of bad ill-used heroine parody and sighing every five bloody minutes. She hasn't told me what the matter is, but I think Anne knows, because they keep whispering between themselves. She might have invited me to sit with them, at least."

"You wanted to sit at Anne Featherstone's table?" asked Edmund, wrinkling his nose.

"No, of course not," huffed Jill, rather indignantly. "But I did want to sit with Marjorie if you two didn't show, and it's very jarring to have a friend completely ignore you like that in favor of some snobby brat who thinks the world revolves around her."

"Ah, school-chums, such young friendships all come to an end eventually I daresay," Puddleglum chimed in, probably trying-though clearly failing-to be comforting. "Must make the best of it, mustn't we?"

Jill shook her head and walked off to throw her left-over venison into the garbage, Puddleglum unwittingly bounce-walking (it's hard not to sometimes when you have such frog-like legs) at her side, intending to do the same.

"Lucy," said Edmund suddenly, poking her lightly on the arm to get her attention. "Jill's right, Marjorie is sitting with Anne Featherstone; I didn't recognize her at first. She's wearing Anne's mint-green velvet hat trimmed with polar-bear fur."

"How do you know so much about Anne's hats?" Lucy asked him teasingly.

"I had the blasted thing described to me in mind-numbing detail the night the school had a ball," Edmund defended himself, shuddering a little at the memory. "I think I would know it when I see it."

Lucy looked over at Marjorie; Edmund was right, she _was_ wearing Anne's hat, the same one she had see her try on when she unwittingly spied on her friend that day in Andrew Ketterley's classroom using The Book of Incantations.

Seeing Marjorie reminded her that she had to tell the poor girl that Edmund wasn't romantically interested in her. She hated Anne Featherstone for getting her friend's hopes up the way she had when there had never even been the slightest real indication that Edmund had even glanced twice at Marjorie. The spoiled girl must have done it on purpose, for no other reason than to be mean and spiteful.

The one thing that made no sense at all was Marjorie's demeanor. If she was so thrilled to be borrowing things from Anne, and sitting at Anne's table and everything, why wasn't she eating any of her food ( _she_ didn't dislike venison, Lucy knew that for a fact), and why did she look so miserable?

"I'm going to have to tell her you don't like her," said Lucy, beginning to feel a little miserable herself, wishing there was some way to avoid that particular unpleasant conversation.

"Do you want _me_ to do it, Lu?" Edmund offered with the best of intentions.

Lucy shook her head. She understood where he was coming from: better that Marjorie hear it straight from the horse's mouth than through continued hearsay. But it was a bit too late for that by this point. "If you go and talk to her now, she'll think it's because you _are_ interested and I've spoken to you for her. I have to be the one to do this."

"Right now? You're just going to walk right up to Anne Featherstone's table?"

Nodding, she said, "Yes, I've got to. But of course I'll pull her aside; I've no intention of giving Anne and her friends the satisfaction of hearing about it."

"Hey." He grabbed her arm. "However it goes, I love you."

She smiled. "I love you, too."

Edmund let go of her arm, nodded encouragingly, and watched as his wife walked over to Anne Featherstone's table, wondering why it sort of felt like watching a harmless doe walk up to a group of snarling, vicious non-talking tigers.

When Lucy reached the table, she put her hand on the edge and asked Marjorie if she could talk to her for a minute.

How dare she be so sweet-tongued and innocent-sounding after how she betrayed me! Thought Marjorie angrily. Lucy did sound a little nervous, but there was no true guilt or remorse in her voice.

Furthermore, the witch had the audacity to walk about the dinning hall with a glowing expression, clearly satisfied with her wicked deeds. Marjorie had noticed it right away as the princess walked in alongside Edmund; Anne had whispered for her not to look, but she couldn't help it. At one point she may have wanted to talk things out with Lucy, but after seeing that look as she walked in, any such desire faded rapidly.

"How dare you approach me like this!" said Marjorie bitterly, glaring up at her from under the mint-green hat, her face hot and her expression twisted.

Lucy blinked and took her hand off the edge of the table, taken aback. "Marjorie, I need to tell you something, can we please-"

"Save it," snapped Marjorie. "I already know."

Lucy's lips parted, her mouth becoming slightly agape. How did Marjorie know she and Edmund were married? No one had seen them leave, had they? Did anyone else know?

"You know?" she repeated slowly, still not wanting to have this conversation in front of Anne and her friends. "About…about me and Ed?"

"Yes, I know," she replied coldly, her expression going from hurt to stony. "I can't believe you did this, and after you said-"

"Marjorie," protested Lucy, almost crying (there were tears forming in her eyes), "you don't understand. I tried; I did ask him if…but I…I mean, he, I mean…he was…"

"What?" Marjorie's brow went up cockily; her voice was much louder than it had been initially. "More interested in bedding you?"

Lucy's face went scarlet. "Wait, what?"

Every eye in the entire dinning hall was on her now, not only Anne Featherstone's table. Even a few teachers who were not part of the Rhindon Investigation Society were listening intently (what they were doing there, as they clearly weren't supervising anything, no one had the foggiest).

Edmund started to get up.

Jill dropped her now-empty plate and it fell to the floor with a great clamor; she spun round, shocked. Had Marjorie just said…? And Lucy's cheeks were all flushed! It couldn't be true, could it?

The princess was torn between wanting to continue explaining herself to Marjorie, who clearly didn't understand the whole situation, and wanting to turn on her heels and run (or, at least, move away from the dinning hall as quickly as her limp would permit).

"Marjorie, it wasn't what you think," Lucy tried, swallowing hard, a few tears escaping. "I mean, we did…but it wasn't…"

Edmund was almost at her side now. He would have already been there, but he'd tripped over an out-of-place chair on the way, which had slowed his progress in rushing to his wife's aid and defense.

"How _can_ you look me in the face, trying to defend yourself, crying like that, you…you whore?" demanded Marjorie.

Jill gasped. "Marjorie!" she shouted from across the dinning hall, horrified.

"It's all right, Marjorie," Anne said 'sympathetically', giving Lucy a very smug grin. "We all know the truth, we all know what she is, no matter what she pretends to be." They hadn't told anyone that they had reported Lucy as a witch, or showed anyone the three magical objects they'd gotten from her room, but plenty of Anne's friends had already been let in on the fact that the princess and count had spent the previous night together long before Lucy approached their table.

"I hope you know, Lucy," said Marjorie, her voice borderline hysteric now, "that your kind always get dealt with in the end." Then she turned away from her and would say nothing further.

Humiliated, everyone still staring at her, Lucy turned around, all her tears flowing freely now, banging right into Edmund who was suddenly directly behind her.

Her husband grabbed onto her arms to get her attention. "I'm going to take care of this, I promise. Don't cry. I'm going to tell them what really-"

But Lucy stopped him, saying, in-between involuntary sobs, "Let's just get out of here."

Edmund wanted to clear up the record, disgusted with Anne and Marjorie both, but he could see that what Lucy needed was to be taken out of the situation entirely. That didn't stop him from giving both Anne and Marjorie a furious expression over his shoulder as he led Lucy, who seemed almost ready to faint, out of the dinning hall, nor from giving a brief kick in the shin to a boy who made a vulgar comment as they passed by, though.

Jill rushed after them, but Marjorie stood up from Anne's table and got in her way. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to see if my friend is all right," declared Jill, speaking in a voice even louder than the one Marjorie had said 'whore' in a few moments ago.

"How can you take her side?" she cried. "Why she's a…" She was about to blurt out, "Witch," but she and Anne had made a pact not to tell anyone as they had no way of knowing which students were under her spell. Clearly, it seemed, Jill Pole was.

"You've already made it perfectly clear what you think she is," snapped Jill, fuming, her expression tight with fury.

"What she did-"

"Look, I don't know what happened between her and Edmund," Jill admited, her tone surprisingly level now. "And, you know what? I don't think it's any of my business. But what I do know is that, instead of telling her how you felt about her actions privately, you embarrassed her in front of jolly nearly everyone in this entire school. There was no need for you to do that, and I'm going to see if she's all right."

"Jill, I-"

"Don't worry about me or Lucy," Jill muttered bitterly, this time speaking so that only Marjorie could hear. "You just go back and sit at Anne's table. There's no need to look so stricken, or pretend you care about either of us; you've finally gotten exactly what you wanted all along."

With that, Jill stretched out her arm and pushed Marjorie out of the way, leaving the dinning hall to search for Edmund and Lucy.

She finally found them outside, sitting in front of the same wall they'd been leaning back against when Lucy realized Edmund was afraid of fire and got him to confess as much to her-the day Eustace was turned into a dragon.

Lucy was weeping into Edmund's collarbone while he held her and promised that everything was going to be all right; he'd make certain of it, he swore.

Jill coughed self-consciously into one of her hands.

Lucy pulled herself out of Edmund's grasp and turned to face her. "Jill? What are you doing here?"

"I came to check on you, of course!" said Jill, rushing over to her friend and giving her a hug.

"But," stammered Lucy, "you aren't angry with me, too, then?"

"No, Marjorie was out of line," she told her, gritting her teeth. "I don't know what happened, but the look on your face when she…when she said that… I was worried."

"None of it was what they thought it was, Jill," Lucy told her shakily. "I'm married to him-to Ed, I mean."

Jill eyes widened. "When?"

"Last night," Lucy confessed, swallowing the last of her sobs. "We left school without permission, we went into the village, and we…we got married."

Although she believed her completely already, Jill looked over to Edmund, as if for confirmation, and he nodded.

"I never wanted to hurt Marjorie," Lucy went on, her voice cracking, weak from all that crying, "but I love him." She looked over her shoulder at Edmund, then turned back to Jill again. "And he loves me."

"He never liked her, did he?" Jill realized; she had secretly suspected as much all along but thought it impolite to verbalize, since Marjorie was their friend and everything.

"Not even a little bit," Edmund said flatly, out-right _disliking_ her at this particular point in time.

"It all happened so fast," said Lucy, standing up slowly and leaning sideways against the wall, closing her eyes half-way. "He kept this locket I gave him years ago, because it had a lock of my hair in it."

"Aw," said Jill, putting her hand to her heart and looking once again at Edmund, who, in turn, shifted uncomfortably, wishing Lucy would stick a little closer to the main point here. "Ed, you old softie!"

Edmund folded his arms across his chest and grunted, muttering something inaudible under his breath.

Out of familiar habit, he reached down to rest his hand on the hilt of the stone knife, only to find it wasn't strapped to his waist, and that he must have left it behind in Lucy's room. He wondered how he could have been so careless with something that valuable, deciding to go and get it, then come back. It wasn't as if Lucy was alone now, she had Jill comforting her, and soon he would set the record straight and everything would be fine. The worst that would happen was that the news of their marriage, which he'd hoped to keep a secret until he and Lucy figured out a way to tell Frank and Helen themselves, would be widely-known ahead of time; but, with Lucy's honour at stake, that didn't seem the biggest issue at the moment.

"Lucy," said Edmund, "I forgot something in your room, is it all right if I leave you with Jill and go get it?"

"Sure," she replied. "I'm fine, really."

"I'm sorry," he told her, planting a quick kiss on her cheek.

"It wasn't your fault," Lucy reminded him.

"It sort of was," he muttered guiltily. "Everything was my idea."

"Which I said yes to," she cut in firmly.

"I'll be right back," he promised softly, walking back into the school.

"So, do you want to talk about the wedding?" Jill asked Lucy as soon as Edmund was gone. "I mean, what was it like?"

Lucy blushed. "Really beautiful. I still have my wedding garland, made of red poppies. I think it's hanging over my fireplace mantelpiece."

"Well, tell me more about it, if you don't mind," Jill said encouragingly. "Who preformed the ceremony? How many witnesses did you have?"

And so Lucy told her everything from the moment Edmund told her he loved her, to the moment they realized they'd over-slept, omitting only any mention of magic, Edmund's past, and a few private details that were just between her and her husband alone.

Jill listened with unwavering attention, squealing and laughing and sighing at all the right parts, and in spite of everything, Lucy counted herself perhaps a little luckier than she'd thought after her argument with Marjorie; she had not imagined she would have an excited chum to tell of her new happiness, this was a wholly unforeseen pleasure.

Meanwhile, before Edmund could reach Lucy's room, he came across a group of fair-headed, dark-eyed middle-aged men he had never seen before. The group was dressed in somber-coloured (almost mourning) velvet robes over dark brown doublets and wore shinned ankle-high leather shoes. There was something vague familiar, even slightly nerve-racking, about them, but Edmund could not put his finger on what it was, only that he didn't know any of them personally.

The leader, his hair roughly the colour of honey and his eyes so dark a brown that they were almost black, turned and asked him if he should be in class in a very condescending fashion.

Irritated, Edmund said, "I'm going to get something, I have permission." Which, really, wasn't _quite_ a lie, as Lucy had given him permission to go, and he wasn't saying any differently, he was simply letting these strange people assume that his permission had come from a teacher or the headmaster, having no intention of volunteering unnecessary information.

"Well, then, get on with you, boy," said the man curtly.

"Who are you?" Edmund asked. "Are you a new teacher here or something?" Had Headmaster Coriakin finally found a replacement for Gumpas? But, if that was the case, who were the others with him?

"Not that it's any of your concern," he snipped, rolling his eyes pompously, "but I happen to be a witch-hunter by profession, and have gotten a report of magic being done in this school."

Andrew Ketterley, thought Edmund, someone's finally come for him.

This was bound to happen sooner or later, but the count wondered what Coriakin thought of these strange people tromping through his school like they owned the place all for the sake of taking a magician into custody.

The knowledge that the man was a witch-hunter also made Edmund more eager than ever to get the stone knife back; he had no desire to be questioned regarding it, or for anyone to start asking why there was a magical emblem in the princess of Narnia's bedroom.

When Edmund entered Lucy's room he ran straight over to the writing desk, horrified to find that the stone knife in its ice-blue sheath was not there.

At first he feared that the witch-hunter had come in and taken it, but then it occurred to him that maybe that wasn't what had happened at all. For something Marjorie said to Lucy had been bothering him: "your kind always get dealt with in the end".

What had she meant by 'her kind'? He had sort of assumed she meant that Lucy was a harlot, which, needless to say, infuriated him to no end, but what if she hadn't meant that at all? Lucy herself had confessed to dabbling unwittingly in a little magic; and she did have the ring and the beauty spell as consequences of that.

The ring and the beauty spell! Were they still in the room? Or were they gone just like his stone knife?

Hastily, Edmund looked around the sides of the bed, even peeking under it, just in case. In the end, he had to face the fact that all of the magical items were gone; stolen, as likely as not.

Had Marjorie stolen them? It would explain, if she had come in while they were still asleep, how she knew that he and Lucy had been together. In her anger, she might well have pinched the items out of impulse, with no real idea of what to do with them afterwards.

But if she was so angry about 'Lucy's kind', someone must have told her that the three items were magic. Edmund didn't think a slow-witted, 'broken-hearted' girl in hysterics was clever enough to figure that out for herself, at any rate. The question was, _who_? Who told her what those things were? Andrew Ketterley knew of magic, but he had no use for misguiding Marjorie; Lucy, his prime target, he had already threatened into keeping her mouth shut.

It had to be someone Marjorie trusted, someone she would have believed no matter what.

"Anne!" exclaimed Edmund, realizing exactly who the leader of those men vaguely reminded him of.

But if Anne had planned all this, then it wasn't Andrew Ketterley the men were here for at all: it was Lucy Pevensie!

"Oh no! Lucy!" Edmund cried, looking about franticly for a weapon, in case he should have to fight those witch-hunters. "Come on, there must be _something_ here!"

After much desperate searching, certain that every second he wasted put his beloved wife closer to potential impending doom, his heart thudding wildly in his chest, he found a sword. He didn't stop to think about why there would be a sword in Lucy's room, so he didn't consider the fact that the only sword in the princess's possession was the one given her by the Rhindon Investigation Society; supposedly Rhindon itself.

Rhindon strapped to his side, Edmund ran as fast as his legs would carry him, down flights of stairs, through corridors, praying he would find Lucy exactly where he'd left her, safe and sound.

He reached Lucy just in time. She and Jill were talking to the witch-hunters, unaware of who they were, and the leader was saying something, making a motion that Lucy should come with him.

Lucy lurched forward, unsuspecting and compliant, stepping on her bad ankle the wrong way, almost falling over.

The witch-hunter offered her his hand and she started to take it, gratefully.

Because of his past, Edmund was well aware that witch-hunters used many dirty tricks, especially when they were convinced that the person they were attempting to apprehend was guilty (which was practically always), and didn't trust the man to even make momentary contact with Lucy without bringing her some harm.

"Lucy, don't!" he called out, rushing forward and seizing her hand.

"Ed, what…" she began.

A howling noise drowned out her question.

"Oh, not now!" moaned Edmund, knowing that the sound meant wolves, and probably not the normal sort, either.

Did Maugrim's pack have to pick right this second to avenge their leader? They were far-off, but they were quick; soon, if they didn't run into the school immediately, the wolves would be upon them.

Jill picked up her skirts and ran into the school, intent on finding the headmaster and begging him for help. Lucy would have done the same, but she couldn't run and, with her ankle feeling weak, could not even fast-walk as quickly as was necessary, so Edmund had to lift her up and carry her into the school, pursued by the witch-hunting group and the howling noises that were louder-closer-now.

Somehow (it was all a blur to Edmund when he remembered it later) he got Lucy to her room and put her down on the bed, where she sat, helplessly, rubbing at her bad ankle.

"Why doesn't this door have a bloody lock?" her husband screamed, frustrated, trying to hold it closed while the witch-hunters were now pounding at it.

Lucy stopped rubbing her ankle, though it still hurt terribly, and tried to move the writing desk.

"Lucy, what in Aslan's name are you doing?" Edmund demanded.

"I'm going to move the desk over there so we can press it against the door, of course!" she shouted, her voice laced with panic, thinking it was rather obvious.

"You can't move it by yourself!" Edmund told her. "Not with your ankle the way it is. You've got no better chance at doing that than at lifting a blasted cathedral, dash it! Go sit back down, I can do this."

"No, you can't!" cried Lucy, leaving the desk and limping forward. "I'm going to have to help you hold it; you'll wear out on your own, and then they'll get in!"

"They won't!" he insisted, but not with as much conviction as he would have preferred.

The sound of splintering wood filled the room. A scream died on Lucy's lips as the tip of an axe came through from the other side, narrowly missing one of Edmund's ears.

There was a kick to the wood, more splintering, another chop with the axe (they didn't have time to wonder where the witch-hunters even _got_ an axe from at such short notice) that could have potentially harmed Edmund, and the door was gone, naught but a gaping hole between them and the witch-hunters.

Edmund thought he had a good chance of surviving a jump out the window, and that he would be able to protect Lucy as well if he took her with him and aimed mostly for the bushes and not the ground itself, so he prepared to do that, until he saw that there were yipping, snarling talking wolves waiting down there for them.

"We're trapped!" Lucy cried.

Suddenly, Jill came rushing over and pushed one of the witch-hunters onto the floor with her bare hands. Then Caspian and Ivy came up behind the fallen man before he could retaliate.

Ivy had a quiver full of arrows on her back and a single arrow on the string of the bow she held out, pointed right at the witch hunters. Caspian had a broadsword. Jill had been unable to find the headmaster in time, but she'd still managed to locate two persons more than willing to help Lucy and Edmund escape the witch-hunters.

Seeing a fight fast approaching, Edmund, still thinking nothing of it, drew Rhindon out of its scabbard and held it out protectively in front of himself and Lucy.

In Edmund's hand the sword made famous by the high king of old Narnia flashed various shades of blue and gold, causing the leader of the witch-hunters to cry out, "Witchcraft! Magic against the great Lion himself!"

Ivy's jaw dropped, and she almost dropped her bow from the shock, but steadied herself just in time.

Caspian's eyes were as huge as china-platters as he stared at Edmund in amazement. "High King Peter."

"We guessed wrong," said Ivy softly, through trembling lips.


	19. And That's How It Really Happened

"Get your dirty rabble out of my school!" shouted Headmaster Coriakin as Caspian, Rhince, Glozelle, and Rynelf lifted the witch-hunters by their collars and the back of their robes and flung them out of the front door. "I did not authorize an attempted kidnapping-yes, I said _kidnapping_ -of the daughter of a highly regarded monarch!"

"Look here," began the leader, his eyes glinting angrily. "The question is-"

"The question _is_ ," snapped Professor Kirke, who was standing at the headmaster's right side, looking every bit as furious as the star did, "whether you will leave the school grounds without a flogging or with one. You may choose which you prefer. Logically, it would be the course of wisdom to go without, but if you'd rather take the other option, there is no reason we wouldn't oblige."

" _Flogging_?" shrieked the leader, flapping his hands dramatically. "My man, you interfere with the Lion's work!"

"Oh, yes," said Caspian sarcastically, "because I am sure Aslan loves it when innocent girls are taken up for witches."

"All I can say," Rhince added sourly, glaring at the witch-hunters, "is that I certainly hope you make yourself scarce and never show your ugly mugs in the east of Narnia, because I'm sure King Frank won't be pleased when we send him word of this, and don't think we won't, either. I know, for myself, that if it had been _my_ daughter you tried to take, I would have broken and bloodied up all your sorry noses!"

"And I expect the money for the door you destroyed to be repaid out of your own pockets," Headmaster Coriakin put in next, remembering that he had meant to bring that up.

"This is all nonsense, I have reports that the princess is in fact involved in witchcraft," the leader declared.

"Who provided you with that information?" Rynelf demanded.

"That's confidential, Sir," he said tartly, still somehow managing to sound very disrespectful, even in his use of the polite word 'sir'.

"If you'll tell us nothing further, then there is simply no reason for keeping you here a moment longer," Headmaster Coriakin announced. "You will go now, and at once."

Leaning forward, his eyes all but burning, the leader hissed, "We go now, but we will return. And do not think for a moment that as soon as that witch is removed from the school grounds she will not stand trial. We have evidence against her; you cannot protect your evil charge for ever; _none_ of you can."

As the leader turned to leave, he lifted up the corner of his robe, revealing his belt and the hilt of a familiar knife made of stone rather than steel, which he, unlike the count who had previously owned the magical emblem, had never thought to disguise.

Caspian recognized the hilt immediately, remembering it well from the night he'd found it and fought Edmund in the corridor, and from the night he'd seen Edmund holding it while it dripped red with wolf-blood (which he had mistakenly taken for Lucy's at first glance).

"It can't be!" he exclaimed under his breath, wondering how the witch-hunter had gotten a hold of it, certain it was not merely another knife of the same kind; somehow he knew instinctively that it couldn't be.

Part of him felt like a coward for not jumping down the stone steps, tackling the pompous man to the ground, and ripping the knife off his person in hopes of returning it to Edmund later, since the count-for all his faults-seemed to be a better keeper of the dreaded blade than this man was ever likely to be. But he feared touching the knife as much now (if not even a little more) as he had the night he first discovered it.

Also, he had promised to get the full consent of the Rhindon Investigation Society before he made drastic movements on his own, so as never again to be as foolhardy as he'd been to fight Edmund in the corridor; and, alas, there was no time for counsel at that moment.

At least he could tell Edmund what he had seen, only that felt greatly insufficient, and Caspian, thinking it over afterwards, always did feel the slightest pang of regret that he had done nothing to take the knife away from the witch-hunter when he had the chance.

A dark shadow that was most certainly not a cloud (clouds didn't have a wingspan, for one thing) passed briefly over-head, coming round full-circle from the back of the building to the front, making the witch-hunters (though they were hurrying away now) mutter a lot of gibberish that was meant to ward off enchantments, and Headmaster Coriakin wonder why Eustace Clarence had not kept to the woods like he was supposed to. Thankfully, at least the dragon was headed back that way now.

Meanwhile, back upstairs, Edmund's stomach lurched and his head spun, making him feel weak and dizzy, and he thought for sure that he was going to be sick.

The Count of the Western March sat, just short of quivering like a leaf, on the edge of Lucy's bed, Rhindon laid out across his lap, only vaguely aware that he was even still breathing.

His wife sat at his side, one of her hands on one of his arms, unable to think of anything to say.

Honestly, Lucy was still a bit in shock herself. In spite of her belief in what the Rhindon Investigation Society was bent on protecting, she had not seen this coming; nothing could have prepared her for the notion that they'd guessed wrong; that Edmund was the next High King Peter (had been all along), not her.

After Edmund pulled out Rhindon, the Headmaster, other Telmarine members of the Rhindon Investigation Society, and Digory Kirke had turned up at long last and had taken the witch-hunters in hand, leading them away, much as they fussed (one or two of them literally kicked and bit in an attempt to break loose and try to get at Lucy again), leaving Edmund and Lucy alone in the room with the broken-down door.

Feeling both numb and overly-aware at the same time, Edmund had looked back out the window to find the wolves gone, all except one, who was still in the process of running away.

That wolf's fur, Edmund had noticed, with pardonable unease, was on fire. And out of the corner of his eye, he could not have said for a certainty that he had not seen something large and scaly, that may well have been none other than Dragon-Eustace, swoop down, kill the burning, whimpering creature with one lightning-fast swoop of its great tail, and fly off with the corpse (his next meal) caught up in his great claws.

So, beginning to think he would pass out if he didn't, Edmund had sat down, not bothering to put the great sword back into its scabbard; at least, not just yet.

"Are you all right?" Lucy asked, breaking the silence after what felt like for ever.

"No," said Edmund truthfully. "They will come back, Lu."

"Who?" She crinkled her brow.

"Who? The bloody witch-hunters, that's who!" he exclaimed, clearly at his wit's end. "I know they'll come back, they always do."

"Ed…" Lucy tried to comfort him, but he shook his head, as it to say it was no use.

"And as for…" Edmund looked down at the sword across his lap. "How could I have been so blind? How could I have forgotten?"

"What are you talking about?" Lucy didn't understand, not completely. "You forgot something?"

"Remember how adamant I was that I knew I wasn't Queen Susan?" Edmund said.

Lucy nodded. "Yes, of course."

"I'm not so sure that I'm not this generation's Peter," he confessed, his expression withdrawn. "I almost believe in all that…when I pulled out the sword…I think it's real, Lu, and that scares me. It scares me almost as much as fire."

"You _did_ pull Rhindon out, and it _did_ light up," the princess had to admit. "But you don't have to be afraid, Edmund, you would be a wonderful king."

"That I can wield Rhindon is only part of it," Edmund sighed, running the tips of his fingers on one hand along the edge of the sword's hilt. "I have a lot more in common with Peter than I realized. For one thing, we both killed a witch."

Lucy's mouth opened automatically and she blinked in surprise, dropping her hand down from his arm and into her own lap. "What?"

Tears glistened in Edmund's eyes. "That's what happened…when I was nine…I killed her…that's how she died, that's what happened to Jadis…I never told anyone about it, only that she was dead, and I eventually forgot myself; especially after almost being burned to death. I didn't remember until I pulled out Rhindon on those witch-hunters…then it just…I looked at them…Ivy and Caspian said that about guessing wrong…and I just _knew_ …the memory came rushing back…"

"Oh, Edmund!" Lucy threw her arms around him.

After pausing for a bit and wiping at his eyes with the back of his wrist, Edmund added, "You know that scar I have on my lower stomach? It's not that big now, I'm not even sure if you ever noticed it or not…"

To be honest, Lucy had noticed it when they were younger and it was more vivid, but as he had never answered her when she asked where he'd got it from, she had more or less forgotten about it. Even when she saw him swimming, she had never really taken much note of the scar; and no one else seemed to, either. But Lucy _did_ remember seeing it when they got dressed that morning, and wondering, for the first time in years, where it had come from, as a passing thought she hadn't even bothered to put into actual words.

"It came from when I killed her," he went on, having mostly regained control over himself, except for his hands, which were still shaking. "She had this wand, and I stole a sword from this soldier she turned to stone-that's what she used her wand for, by the way, Lu-before it turned to stone with him, and I used it to cut her wand in half. Half of the wand fell to the floor and shattered on the ice, and she jabbed me in the stomach with the other half she still held in her hand.

"I didn't know what I was doing; I was young, and I hurt all over, and I saw the stone knife strapped to her waist, remembering all the times she taunted me with it. And I don't know, I just lost it: when she was bent down over me, watching blood pour out of my stomach onto the floor of her castle, I closed my eyes, tightened my grip on the soldier's sword, and thrust it into her heart with all the strength I had left.

"When I knew she was dead, I stole the stone knife-as you already know-then I pressed my hand to my stomach and ran away as fast as I could. I tried to bind the wound myself, and eventually succeeded, but at first it wouldn't clot."

"You could have died," Lucy said numbly.

"Which has made me wonder something else now," he told her.

"What is it?"

"Everything that happened to me, I survived, and the outcome was that I was brought into Cair Paravel and raised as a royal courtier by pure accident, not birth." Count though he was, there was a good chance he would have never even _been_ to the court at Cair Paravel if none of that had ever happened.

"Just like Peter." Lucy realized what Edmund was getting at: there was no indication whatsoever that Peter, in the other world he came from (which they _both_ seemed to believe in now, at any rate), had important rank of any kind.

"So if I'm Peter," mulled Edmund, trying to take it all in, "then that makes you…"

"Susan." Lucy's eyes widened. "But we don't…she and I…" Suddenly the horrible thought that perhaps Edmund (who was so clearly King Peter) had married the wrong girl, and that he had yet to meet this generation's Susan, struck her.

"Actually, you do have some similarities," he had to admit. "Not only are you both remarkably beautiful…"

Lucy blushed; she didn't believe that she was as beautiful as the legendary consort of High King Peter, nor did she any longer care a fig about that, but it was sweet of him to say.

"…but you also _did_ give me a silver apple, that day in Professor Kirke's classroom. You're both strong-willed and supportive, not to mention extremely gentle and kind. And if you're Peter's descendant, in all likelihood, you're _hers_ , too."

"That doesn't seem like all that much to go on."

Edmund shrugged shoulders and reminded her, "Hey, they said I was Susan just because I could swim, remember?"

"That's true," said Lucy, pensively. "Maybe her signs of presence in a generation are more subtle than Peter's, more allusive."

"I still can't believe I, well, actually believe in this…" Edmund stated, clearly bewildered.

"Ed," said Lucy, her face suddenly gone white, "what do you think Ivy meant?"

"About what?"

"Didn't you hear?" she asked, frowning. Then she shook her head. "No, wait, you couldn't have, you were looking out the window at the time. Well, after she said that about guessing wrong, and the witch-hunters were dragged off, she looked right at me and said, 'Dear Aslan, please, not again, I won't let it happen again'. I don't know why she said that, though."

Edmund slid Rhindon back into its scabbard, swallowing a lump in his throat. "Is she still in this part of the school?"

"Ivy? I think so, probably, unless she went with the headmaster and the rest."

"I need to talk to her," he announced in a kingly tone that was hard to argue with. "Wait here."

"Wait here?" Lucy couldn't help protesting, though she made no motion to stand up and go after him. "Ed!"

Rhindon thumping against his leg, he ran through the corridor till he reached the end, where the staircases going both up and down started, and found Ivy sitting in a chair the Macready usually used during the night-watch.

Ivy looked, right then, like a very confusing combination of who she really was and who she pretended to be. She was dressed simply, not according to her station, and at the moment there was no gold encircling her proud, beautiful brow, but her dark hair was all let down and her expression was one of bitter, regal despair.

Edmund coughed into one of his hands to get her attention, for she had been looking in the opposite direction, down the stairs, at nothing, and had not seen or heard him approach.

"Oh." She rose from her place, glanced both ways, and once she was certain no one else was there, she bowed to him. "Your Majesty."

"All right, that is going to take some getting used to," Edmund muttered under his breath, wondering exactly how one ever got used to being bowed to by the daughter of a God in the guise of a maid.

"I'm sorry we didn't see it before," she said simply, her expression distant.

"You know what happened to Susan, don't you?" he asked, flat out, looking over his shoulder briefly to be sure Lucy had not followed him after all.

Ivy frowned, arched an eyebrow, and said, "And how would I know that?"

"You're a lot older than you let on," Edmund figured out. "You're ageless. I don't know what you told the Rhindon Investigation Society as a whole, but you never told me or Lu how many years or centuries you've been around for. For all we know, you could have been in High King Peter's court itself."

"Very clever, Sire." She looked impressed. "No one else has ever asked me about that. And you're very nearly right, too. But I'm even older than that, I was around when Swanwhite was queen and Rhindon was first made."

"So," pressed Edmund, not willing to get off the subject, "what happened to her?"

"Nothing, nothing at all," Ivy said, much too quickly.

"Ivy, _tell me_ _what happened_."

"I fear to."

"Please," he begged, unfastening Rhindon from his waist and offering it to her. "You can take this back, if you want, I don't care about…I just want to know for Lucy's sake, if history's repeating itself. You have to tell me: what happened to Susan?"

"She pulled off a betrayal unwittingly, the details of which I know probably as little as you do, even though I was at court at the time." Ivy refused to take Rhindon back, but, wanting to help Lucy, too, gave in and started to tell him what happened. "After which she was falsely accused of a crime she did not commit."

The blood draining from his face and lips, Edmund managed to ask, "What was the crime?"

Ivy swallowed. "Witchcraft."

"No!" Edmund felt weak at his knees, as if they might buckle under him at any second now.

"That's another reason I thought Professor Kirke was right about you," she said, lowering her voice.

"What do you mean?"

"Because when you were young you…" Her voice trailed off. "I never imagined anyone would accuse _Lucy_ of a thing like that."

"Wait, hold on." He glared at her suspiciously. "You know about what happened to me before I was taken in by King Frank? You've known all along?"

"Yes." She lowered her eyes for a moment.

"How much do you…?"

"All of it, Your Majesty, from the moment you were born onwards."

"You knew my family?"

"Not well, but, yes, I knew _of_ them. And I knew you were innocent. I was the one who made sure-by indirect means-that Frank saw you in time and rescued you."

"Thank you, but why did you do it?" He needed to know.

"Because, I always hated that I couldn't rescue her, and I knew-although I had no suspicions at all of your connection to the legend at the time-that I couldn't bear letting you die; not when I could save you. I may not have been able to do anything for Queen Susan, but I thought I could save the life of Count Martin."

"Do you know what the white witch wanted me for?"

"Yes. Well, I do now, I think."

"Why?"

"Jadis must have known what I-what all of us-did not, that you were the next high king. She was trying to stop you from reaching your potential, and accidentally led you unknowingly straight to it."

"All right then, that's all well and good, since she's dead now, and I've got Rhindon…but what are we going to do for Lucy?" Edmund said desperately. "The witch-hunters will come back."

"I don't want her to die like Susan did, but if it happens the same way…there might be nothing…I should have known that since I could save you, you weren't…I thought that part of the story was over this time around."

"Obviously it's not," said the high king, grimly yet with an unwavering strength riding underneath his tone, "but I'm going to close that chapter once and for all."

"How?" Ivy asked, knitting her brow, startled by his conviction.

"I'm taking Lucy away from this school," Edmund decided. "Tonight. We'll be gone by the time those men-or the wolves, if any of them are still alive-get back."

"High King Peter does not run from danger so that it may trail after him like a bloodhound," said Ivy, a little pretentiously, scowling at his caution, mistaking it for cowardice.

"Maybe he doesn't," said Edmund flatly, turning on his heels. Over his shoulder he added, "But Edmund Pevensie does."


	20. Another World

"Our defiance of the witch-hunters will not go unpunished," said Coriakin. He was standing with his hands behind his back, looking out one of the windows in the school's extensive, well-furnished library, currently void of any students, as they were all at their lessons in various classrooms; it was only himself and Professor Kirke.

The said Professor Kirke was stuffing and lighting his pipe. It probably wasn't the best time for smoking, but he couldn't help it; he was too stressed and disturbed not to. He brought the pipe to his lips, took a long puff, and sighed.

"And now dear Princess Lucy will be drawn into it, worse than we could ever imagine," the star went on, his eyes troubled, the corners of his mouth turned down in severe pout. "We were wrong, Digory. The truth about the parts they play in all this was right under our very noses the whole time, and we never saw it. If we had, we could have groomed Edmund to be better prepared for the privilege and responsibility of his future, instead of off-handedly letting him in on the secrets, more for the sake of Lucy's comfort than anything else. We thought him-as Susan-only a little more important than the possibility of Jill Pole being Aravis; it was foolhardy of us. Now we see the truth: Edmund was Peter all along."

Removing his pipe from his mouth, Professor Kirke said, "The mistake was largely my own."

"No, friend, we all believed it." Coriakin shook his head. "The blame does not lie with you."

"I was so sure it was Lucy, it seemed to make such sense!"

"Indeed it did," agreed the headmaster.

"I feel it would be best if we no longer allowed Lucy to leave the school at all for a time," the professor suggested, little though he liked it, imagining how restless the poor girl was likely to become. "No trips out with the other students, no voyages into the near-by villages, nothing of the sort. They will come back for her, but it would be twice as easy if they could snatch the princess up without the bother of doing so."

"If this threat does not let up on its own," said Coriakin, agreeing with Digory's inconvenient yet most likely effective plan, "we may have to keep her here during the school holidays as well. Which means writing to King Frank and informing him and his wife of why their daughter must stay here. I can feel the forces of darkness building up outside our walls; stars can sense such things, you know. I doubt it would let up even if this generation's Susan had the entire royal guard surrounding her. Now that Edmund knows who he's meant to be, wicked forces will stop at nothing to frighten him. The biggest weapon against the high king is striking at his queen; it shan't be used lightly, but if we don't take urgent measures, it will be used eventually."

"Then it's settled, the queen stays here." Digory put his pipe back into his mouth, puffing harder than before, beginning to feel quite depressed from all this anxiety.

"You may find that a little harder than you think," said a voice from the nearest doorway.

It was a familiar voice, so it wasn't exactly alarming for the headmaster and the professor, but it did startle them a bit. They turned simultaneously, Digory pulling his pipe all the way into the right corner of his mouth, to see Caspian and Ivy at the library's entrance.

"Ivy, my dear," said Coriakin, worried, "you look petrified, what's happened?"

"It isn't what _has_ happened," Caspian, at her side, explained, looking rather unsettled himself; "it is something that is _going to_ happen."

"If you fear for Lucy's safety, you must remember none of us will let up until this is all in the past; the Rhindon Investigation Society will not let the queen be burned-not this time," said Professor Kirke in a gentle, reassuring voice. "She will be safe here."

"That's just it," said Ivy, her brow sinking downwards. "She _won't_ be here, we've come to tell you…"

"Tell us what?" asked Coriakin, confused.

"Ivy's told me," said Caspian, fighting against the urge to bite onto his lower lip, "that Edmund means to take Lucy and leave tonight."

"He's mad!" exclaimed Professor Kirke, almost choking, coughing hollowly. "Where exactly does he imagine he will take her? What do they teach youngsters these days? Lion preserve me!"

"If she has any sense," grunted Coriakin, "she will refuse to go with him."

"I wouldn't count on that," said Caspian, resting his hand on the hilt of the sword strapped to his belt. "She doesn't seem to tell him no very often. At least, not according to the stories currently floating around the school, thanks to Marjorie Preston's little out-burst in the dinning hall."

"And you're listening to that tosh?" snapped Ivy, cocking her head at him. "I thought you had more sense."

"Oh, I don't believe them entirely, and if one more person calls Lucy a bad name, I may lose it," Caspian assured her. "And, by the way, Coriakin, on that note," he added, turning to the headmaster, "there might be the slightest chance of a boy or two coming into your office later, saying I 'threw something hard at them'." To Ivy: "But _something_ has happened between Edmund and Lucy; that much is clear. I just imagine it has been greatly exaggerated by a few jealous pupils."

"I think I can guess what that something was," Coriakin told them. "Ramandu, a star who performs marriages in these parts, is a relative of mine."

"It was a wedding, then?" Ivy grinned in spite of herself. "I suspected as much."

"It does explain a lot," Caspian said, understanding more fully the reason for the new all-teeth smile Edmund had gotten seemingly out of no where. "Although, quite frankly, I wouldn't like to be in the count's shoes if they ever get back to Cair Paravel and have to tell King Frank and Queen Helen what they did."

"Let us get back to the matter at hand, shall we?" interjected Professor Kirke, a terse undertone in his voice. "The high king cannot simply run away."

"The forces of darkness outside and within would never allow it," Coriakin put in.

"So what do we do?" asked Ivy. "I could not bear it if Susan died again. But, as you said, if they run, they're just as doomed; the both of them."

"Wait…" Headmaster Coriakin's eyes darkened. "Who's with the high king and queen now?"

"No one," Caspian told him.

"What is the hour?"

"Early evening," Ivy said. "Why?"

"There's still time to stop them," Headmaster Coriakin declared. "Edmund's smart, he won't leave when people can see him running."

"Unless he decides to go out a window or something," Caspian pointed out.

Ivy, Coriakin, and Digory all cocked their heads in the Telmarine valedictorian's direction and scowled at him.

"Sorry," Caspian said, looking away awkwardly. "I simply thought it was a valid point."

"Negative thinking will get us nowhere," said Ivy boldly. "We must do something."

"The main thing is to stop them from leaving," the headmaster concluded, reaching up and stroking his beard thoughtfully. "We must not let them exit the school under any circumstances. As an act of loyalty, we must stop the high king by any means necessary, understood?"

"Understood," said Ivy and Caspian together.

"Digory," ordered Coriakin, taking charge, "go find my daughter and order her to spy on Edmund and Lucy, so that we can know if they're packing to go, or what they're currently discussing in their plans. Caspian and Ivy, try to speed things up a little around the school; tell Drinian to announce an early supper and early light's out for today, make up some excuse, I don't care what it is. I want the dinning hall empty tonight for as long as possible, in case there's no other means."

"Are you saying," asked Ivy, "that if Edmund refuses to listen, we are going to lock him and Lucy in the dinning hall all night?"

"It isn't as if we could lock them in their rooms; there aren't any locks on any of the student rooms in this school, and Lucy's door is splintered, regardless. I can think of no other alterative, this must be done, the future of Narnia depends upon it."

Sitting in front of the unlit fireplace in her room, Lucy shivered, glancing from the broken door, to the window, to Edmund who was busily stuffing things into a burlap knapsack, muttering to himself.

The count would have liked to take his trunk, but as they had no carriage and had to go on foot until they could find other means of transportation, it was too heavy to consider. Not that the knapsack wasn't a little heavier than he would have liked, seeing as he'd packed Lucy's beloved _Myths and Legends of the Golden Age_ as well as her favorite Old Narnian to Lantern Waste French dictionary, both of which weighed a ton when carried together, but he simply hadn't had the heart to tell her to leave the tomes behind.

"Edmund?" said Lucy, glancing over her shoulder at him. She wasn't so sure about any of this.

"Hmm?" Edmund grunted and, noticing she was cold, picked up a brown woolen blanket, put it over her trembling shoulders, kissed her on the cheek, then went back to packing.

"Where are we going anyway?" Lucy wanted to know, hoping he would stop packing and grumbling for a moment and explain more fully what their plans were.

"The Lone Islands," he said shortly.

"Why the Lone Islands?"

"Because, Lucy, it's not in Narnia, and the witch-hunters _are_ ," said Edmund impatiently.

"But the islands are still under Narnian rule," Lucy said, pulling the blanket a little tighter around herself, "aren't they? Which would mean they could send someone to find me there. And, besides, most of the ports are in the east; we won't make such a journey in one piece if they're looking for me. It would be the same as if we were going back home to Cair; we wouldn't make it, Ed."

She was right, of course. But it wasn't easy to accept; Edmund's plan had been, once they reached the Lone Islands, to contact a well-off friend of Caspian's he had heard lived over there, a Lord Bern, and offer to work for him in exchange for temporary lodging. Now that he realized his idea had too many holes, he would have to do a lot of improvising when it came to places to stay and what they would eat. Dash those witch-hunters and that blasted Anne Featherstone!

"We'll go north, then," he decided, twisting his mouth ponderously. "Out of Narnian territory. I can find work; as a swordsman, if nothing else."

North: it sure was cold up there, he thought. Perhaps they should pack extra blankets and sheets; they would be light-weight anyway, so it wouldn't be a bother, and they would be thankful enough of them if they should run into leaky roofs or bad weather where-ever they ended up.

Shrugging, Edmund reached out to take the comforter off of the bed, roll it up, and thrust it into the knapsack along with everything else. He paused at the sheets, which were velvet and so warmer than most by default.

"We can pack sheets, too," he said, and whether he was talking to Lucy or to himself was uncertain. Then, glancing down at them (they were the same ones from the previous night since no one had come in to change them), noticing a red stain caked onto the velvet, the count shook his head and added, "Just not these."

"But maybe if we stay here," Lucy tried, ignoring his strange packing-speeches, not quite catching onto that last part.

"And, what? Wait for them to come back, grab you, and drag you off to prison while they set up a fake trial with a bunch of false witness?" His expression was angry now, though not at her. "Do you really think Marjorie won't testify against you? You know she will. After how she spoke to you today, I'm certain of it. She's nothing but a flighty-minded liar, working for Anne. We stay, and next time, when they come, we risk losing everything. We go now, and we have a chance figure things out-together."

"If we're prepared," Lucy protested weakly, "maybe we could hold them off. If we dig down in the Rhindon Investigation Society's secret chamber, we could make tunnels and probably hold the witch-hunters off indefinitely."

"If they're smart," Edmund said, going over and squatting down in front of where she sat, holding out his hands to her, knowing how frightened she was, "they'll just wait and starve us out."

Lucy took his hands and allowed herself to be pulled into his arms. "When do we leave?"

He whispered his plan into her ear, all the while assuring her he wouldn't let her get hurt, he'd protect her, no matter what; they would be safe together, he promised.

Neither of them noticed the pale, cold blue light hiding behind one of the oil lamps in the room. A small bluish-white sphere was watching them, listening to their plans and reasonings.

As soon as the glowing ball understood that they were in earnest and what time they meant to make their escape, it flew out of the room, unobserved, through the broken door and down many corridors until it reached the headmaster's office.

Outside of the double-doors, the floating object lowered itself, and began to change form from a tiny blue star, to a young woman in a white gossamer gown; none other than Lilliandil herself. She had done her job, now she had nothing further to do than report what she knew to her father.

Later that night, at the desired hour, Edmund and Lucy, having only the few belongings in their sack and Rhindon (which was in its scabbard, strapped to Edmund's side, as was only proper) with them, crept down the corridors, glad as anything that the Macready was still ill and they didn't have to worry about _her_ , at least, if no other stresses were currently off their backs.

Turning a corner, Edmund almost banged straight into Caspian, who stood in front of the rest of Rhindon Investigation Society, well prepared to impede their progress.

The count cursed under his breath and tightened his grip both on Lucy's hand and on the sack over his shoulder.

"I understand that you want to protect us," said Edmund levelly, once he got over being startled, "but it's clear that you…well, can't…"

"How do you mean?" demanded Trumpkin from the shadowy corner where he stood, a dwarf-sword in hand even though none of them had any intentions of using weapons for anything besides empty threats tonight; he sounded slightly offended.

"Well," said Edmund, speaking to them all, not only Trumpkin, "let's recap, shall we? During our time here, Lucy's had her ankle ripped apart by a wolf, her name dragged in the mud, and was nearly taken away by witch-hunters; none of you were able to stop any of that from happening."

"I like that!" snapped Caspian crossly, taking a step closer to him. "It isn't as if you protected her from any of that yourself. And, no offense, but you can't blame us for ruining her good name; that one is all on your own head."

"Caspian!" Professor Kirke reprimanded him.

"I've done nothing to protect her?" Edmund barked, dropping the knapsack and letting it fall to the floor with a thud. "Who killed Maugrim? Who grabbed her hand and ran as fast as humanly possible to get her away from the witch-hunters before any of you turned up to help? Answer me that, Valedictorian! And the last time I checked marrying someone wasn't a crime, or is it at this school where no one can keep their mouth shut?"

"Enough!" Coriakin insisted as loudly as he dared. "Caspian, you are out of line. Edmund, you're not much better; I would like you to keep in mind that, without our help, you would not have had Rhindon at your disposal, and without our willingness to let events take place the way they are meant to, without interference, you would not have gotten married in the first place."

"With all due respect, Headmaster Coriakin, you have to let us go, in spite of everything," Edmund said, after an uncomfortable pause following the headmaster's words. He appealed to Ivy, hoping she would understand and persuade the others to let him pass. "You saved my life once, because you couldn't let me die-not when you could safe me. All I'm asking is for a chance to do the same for Lucy before it's too late."

Ivy shook her head. "Your Majesty, running away will solve nothing."

"She's right," said Professor Kirke. "Think about it: where ever you go, they will come after her, and you will both be without the safety of these walls and our society."

"That's what I'm worried about," Lucy said unexpectedly, in a low voice.

"Sorry?" Edmund turned his head to look back at her, puzzled.

"You're talking like there's only two options: dying within these walls, or dying outside of them."

"Lu," sighed Edmund impatiently, "haven't you been listening? I thought you agreed with me."

"I do," Lucy said, "but not entirely. What if…is there some way to contact Aslan? If anyone can help, I know he can."

"Lucy, why suggest that when I could sooner control the wind than find him?" Edmund asked sadly, looking at her with a lost expression, closing his eyes, then opening them again. "I believe in Him, you know I do. But I don't know him."

"He knows you," Lucy whispered, squeezing his hand. "Remember?"

"Then he'll understand why we had to leave," Edmund answered softly.

"Enough of this," said Rhince, his voice weary. "We can't let you pass, that's the matter, and there's no changing it. You leave now and the witch-hunters will learn of it (their leader has a niece in this school, for pity's sake) and track you through all of Narnia!"

Edmund rolled his eyes and huffed, "That's why we're not staying in Narnia."

"You can't take King Frank's daughter out of Narnia, Edmund," Caspian told him, his tone a little darker with determination.

"Says who?" growled Edmund.

"I do." Caspian leaned so that his face was closer to the count's.

"If I'm supposed to be your high king, then get out of my way," he hissed, a touch more nastily than was actually called for.

"So it has come to that, has it?" grunted Caspian, furiously.

"Oh, stop it, all of you!" Lucy stamped her foot. "That's the trouble with doing anything with boys or men; you're all such swaggering, bullying idiots who can't have a civil disagreement! Everything with males comes down to last-stands and cowardly threats! Ivy and Lilliandil at least haven't been rough about their opinions, and Elaine never raises her voice or shouts at all. I wish you silly men would learn something about that!"

"A lesson that I'm afraid will be better learned another time, my queen," said Headmaster Coriakin rather grimly and finally. "The issue is, however tactless Caspian is being, that if we must lock you both up until you come to your senses, it will be our unfortunate duty to show you the tips of our swords, confiscate Rhindon-only for the night, I assure you-and take you to the dinning hall where you will spend the remainder of the night."

What happened next was not so much a fight as it was a scuffle. Caspian and Edmund wrestled, and because the stakes were high, it wouldn't be quite true to claim there weren't a few below the belt kicks and random biting involved, but in the end, since Caspian had the others helping him, Rhindon was taken away from the high king and given back into the headmaster's care.

Edmund would have kept on fighting, even after Rhindon was taken from his belt, except Nikabrik, who was the sort to take things too far, grabbed onto one of Lucy's arms and twisted.

It got the job done, the count gave himself up, but as soon as it became apparent that Lucy was really in pain from the black dwarf's merciless grip, Trumpkin came forward and hit his fellow dwarf, strictly in way of business, with the back of his sword hilt, causing him to drop the princess's arm and pass out onto the floor.

"Sorry," Trumpkin apologized gruffly to Lucy. "That was not part of the plan. I don't think that's what Coriakin meant by his 'by any means'. Are you all right, my little friend?"

Lucy managed a weak smile, for 'little' from him was rather comical, and while she didn't like Nikabrik much at all, she was fond enough of Trumpkin, knowing instinctively that he was a good soul who meant no harm and only needed something to grumble about every now and again.

To Coriakin, Trumpkin said, "Sir, I'm sorry about Nikabrik, I did not mean to hit him so hard."

"He earned it, he could have broken her arm with a little more force, the brute! He acted stupid and carelessly." Coriakin shrugged his shoulders, gritting his teeth in displeasure. "All the same, I don't envy the headache he will have when he wakes up."

Then, Edmund and Lucy were dragged, not at all cruelly, but firmly and without let-up for fear they would try to escape their grasps, all the way to the dinning hall, which was fairly dark at that hour, and locked in.

"I hate this," said Professor Kirke as the headmaster turned the key in the lock and ignored all of Edmund's banging and rather forceful insistence that he and Lucy be let out at once.

"As do I," Coriakin concurred, concealing the key in his breast-pocket under his robe, his expression crestfallen. "But I don't see that there was any other way."

Inside the dinning hall, Edmund continued to pound on the door with his fists, hoping the noise would dissuade the Rhindon Investigation Society from leaving them there.

"Let it go, Edmund," said Lucy, sitting on one of the endless long wooden tables, her feet propped up on a chair she'd pulled out under it. "It's hopeless. They're gone and they've locked us in. They won't come back till morning, when they have to let us out before the others come in to take their breakfast."

"And Caspian called _me_ a traitor that time in the corridor!" scoffed Edmund, folding his arms across his chest and giving the door one last, swift kick before walking over to Lucy.

"They think they're doing the right thing," she said, her voice faltering.

"Keeping us here until the witch-hunters come and take you," he retorted sardonically. "Yes, I'm sure in their place I would think it the thing to do, too."

"We'll be all right," Lucy hoped aloud.

Edmund sighed and hopped up onto the table, sitting down beside her.

"If Father could save you," she said quietly, "maybe, if things get really bad, he can save me, too. Or Aslan will."

A dozen or so unpleasant thoughts ran through Edmund's head, none of which seemed appropriate to voice at the moment. One was that Aslan hadn't stopped him from being taken by the white witch in the first place as a child, another was that if evil forces, intent on offing the high king's consort in this generation refused to let up, there probably wasn't much King Frank could do about that; and somehow just thinking 'evil forces' and 'high king's consort' in a believing, serious manner still sort of made him feel incredibly stupid.

His face must have been strained, despite the fact that he said nothing, because Lucy reached out and started stroking his arm consolingly.

Edmund leaned closer to his wife's face, twisting his neck to rest his forehead against hers for a moment. At least, even if they were trapped in the dinning hall, they were together, and relatively safe-for the time being, anyway.

Seconds and minutes ticked by like hours, and as they really had nothing to do aside from comforting each other in this place that looked sort of spooky, all those mirrored-walls glinting in the dim moonlight that managed to get in through cracks and high-up windows, the carvings and paintings on the ceilings looking more oppressive than they did beautiful in the darkness, they kissed.

Lucy felt her husband's hand ride up a little under the doublet of his she was borrowing for what was supposed to be their escape and was now their imprisonment.

"Edmund!" she gasped, pulling away from him.

"What?"

"We're in a _dinning hall_!"

"So?"

"So, don't you think we shouldn't be um…" Her cheeks went red. What she meant to say was that she thought it probably wasn't the best place for fooling around.

"Right, because everyone knows it's an unspoken breech of decorum to make out in a dinning hall!" he sneered sarcastically.

"Edmund, don't snap at me like that." Lucy made an exaggerated pouting-face at him.

"I'm sorry," he sighed apologetically. "I'll be a gentlemen…" He tried-and largely failed-to keep a straight face as he hastily added, "…in the dinning hall."

Lucy laughed and shook her head. "What am I going to do with you?"

"Be with me for ever?" he suggested, smiling cheekily.

"Well, yes, there's that," Lucy agreed. "But we've already agreed on that one."

"I wonder what Father's going to say," Edmund mused.

"He loves you, he'll understand."

"I hope so. I still think they might…even Mum, and I know she's grown to love me…be cross."

"I think, if we can face down witch-hunters and evil curses and magical emblems, a little crossness mightn't jar us too badly."

Edmund nodded and slipped his arm around Lucy shoulders. "I think you're right, Wife."

Lucy squinted over at one of the mirrors that lined the walls. "Edmund, am I going round the bend again or is that speck of light coming from _behind_ the mirror instead of being reflected _off_ of it?"

He concentrated on the light; it was surprisingly yellow and brilliant, little though it was. "No, I thing you're right, it _is_ coming from behind it!"

"Well come on then," Lucy stood up, standing on her chair and offering her hand to Edmund so they could examine the mirror together. "Let's go take a closer look."

"There's nothing else for it, so I'm game." He stood up, jumped down with her, and hand-in-hand they rushed over to the mirror.

The light shone, in a slated manner, through the edge of the mirror, straight into their eyes.

"Look." Lucy reached out with her free hand and pushed the mirror inwards, it seemed to creak forward like a door opening, and the yellow light fell, in more quantity, on their faces, against a dark backdrop.

A slightly polluted outdoor smell and a wave of smog rushed up Edmund's nose and throat and made him cough. Lucy felt a gust of wind whip at her hair.

They stepped through the open mirror-door and into the cool wind and smog, and when they looked back, over their shoulders, the dinning hall was gone, no where to be found, and they were in an entirely unknown place.

The yellow light was from several lampposts not unlike the one the Lantern Waste was known for, only these lined an asphalt-paved street and were as new and shinny and well kept-up as the Narnian one was old and partially rusted.

This clearly was not part of Narnia at all, as it had a completely different feel. And Edmund wondered if this was the place Andrew Ketterley had been trying to send Eustace to when he'd accidentally turned him into a dragon instead.

"Edmund, your clothes!" gasped Lucy; for she saw that his Narnian clothes had melted away like a thin black mist and he was now wearing a grayish-white shirt and peculiar dark trousers, with lace-up leather boots that looked nothing at all like the ones he'd had on back in the dinning hall.

Looking down, Lucy saw her clothes were changed, too. Edmund's doublet was gone, and she wore a knee-length blue flower-patterned dress with a purple knitted sweater over it, cream-coloured leggings, and a neat pair of black shoes were strapped to her feet.

"What _is_ this place?" said Lucy, attempting to cross the street to the other side, where it seemed a little less foggy, only to be impeded by a strange-looking carriage without any horses pulling it (it was called a car, and ran on an engine, but there was no way she could have known that) almost hitting her.

The driver stopped just in time and shouted, "Watch yourself, Lass!"

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Lucy turned and ran back over to the other side where Edmund still stood, exhaling in relief that she wasn't hurt.

"Gosh," she said. "This place seems a bit faster-paced than Narnia, doesn't it?"

"Come on," said Edmund, taking her hand once again as they continued the walk down the pavement without crossing the street. "I suppose we'll have to find someplace to spend the night here."

It was a long street, but when they got to the kerb, they found a red call box. Edmund opened the red-and-glass door and stepped inside, picking up a strange black object, thinking perhaps he was supposed to put it to his ear, though he couldn't see the purpose of doing so.

He furrowed his brow as he heard an automated voice start up, listening to what it had to say. "No, I'll not accept the charges!" Confused and oddly vexed, he slammed the phone (for that's what it was) back down, hanging it up.

"What a waste of time," Edmund told Lucy, getting out of the phone box. "Do you know that odd thingummy tried to charge me what sounded like an absurd amount of money for no apparent reason?"

She hooked her arm under his and rolled her eyes as he went on for a bit about how vexing it was stumbling into another world and then being ordered to pay a fee as soon as one got there.

"I'm sure it wasn't just against _you_ , Ed," Lucy told him.

One of his shoulders went upwards in a half-shrug. "Yeah, I suppose not."

"Isn't it cold here?" Lucy murmured.

"Sure is, keep close to me," he told her, as they continued to walk along.

Almost an hour and a half later, they came to an abandoned theater; the sign was torn down and partly hidden behind large, over-flowing dustbins, and there was a giant hole in the shabby, greatly rotted, wooden board that covered up the entryway.

It didn't look very appealing, certainly, but it seemed dry enough, and perhaps it would be a bit warmer in there than it was outside.

Edmund wished he'd brought his knapsack with him, thinking regretfully of it sitting uselessly on the floor back at Coriakin's boarding school in Narnia. He climbed in through the broken-down board first, then helped Lucy in after him, telling her where to put her feet and when to push up on his arms so he could lift her through.

Once they both stood on the other side, panting a little, they turned round and discovered that the idea to lodge in an abandoned building for shelter and safety was not so novel in this place as they might have thought. Several other young persons, many of them their age, were already huddled in there.

Blankets-quite a few of them borderline ratty-were spread out on the floor of the open main room, teenagers galore sleeping-or trying to sleep-on them. Some of them looked okay, with decent clothes only a little more worn than Edmund and Lucy's perfectly acceptable-looking garments were, but others looked tired; one boy and a girl who looked a lot like him and might have been his sister had beat-up shoes with flapping, torn soles. It was clear that there was one thing all these children had in common: none of them had homes; they were all street-brats.

A boy of about nineteen or twenty with sandy-coloured bangs that fell into his eyes and clearly were in desperate need of a hair-cut, noticed Edmund and Lucy standing there, and said, "Ah, hallo there, mates."

"Hullo," answered Lucy, politely.

"Blimey! You don't look roughed-up much," he commented, standing up and putting his hands on his hips. "Kicked out of the 'ouse not so long ago, was yer?"

"Yeah," said Edmund, deciding it was best, just for the night, to go along with these strange people so they could figure out why they were in this world in the morning. "That's right."

"What was yer thrown out fer?" another boy, about a year or two younger than the first, piped up.

"Um, parents didn't approve of something we did," Edmund invented vaguely.

Someone coughed hollowly in the background.

"Well, yous can lay down 'ere, I s'pose." They gestured to the few remaining open spaces in the wide room. "Make yourself comfortable."

"Ask if theys got food on 'em!" a thin girl in a patched-up plaid skirt and an unraveling greenish-gray sweater told the first boy.

"They en't got nuffin on 'em, 'cept the clothes on their backs."

The count and the princess from the other world settled down, side by side. Lucy was a little disappointed that no one offered them so much as a blanket to share, but she supposed they didn't know much about sharing and didn't have much to share even if they did. Rolling over, she managed to ask a half-asleep, ginger-headed girl what the name of this place was.

"You mean the theater?" she yawned. "I dunno."

"No, I mean, the place we're in."

"The street?"

"No, the place; town, village, whatever you call it."

"Yer mean London? Fancy not knowing that much! Don't know yous in London! Don't yer know anythin'?"

Lucy rolled back the other way and rested her head against the side of Edmund's neck, not bothering to answer. She didn't know anything about any 'London', so she was no closer now to understanding than she'd been before.

Not even twenty minutes after he'd managed to fall asleep on the hard, dirty theater floor, Edmund was subconsciously aware of smog from outside on the street being blown into the theater and swarming all around him as if it was made up of charged particles and he was a magnet. In his dreams, the smog became a thick, green mist, hovering over him, whispering evil things, trying to work its mischief.

He opened his eyes (or he thought he did, not knowing that this was all a nightmare and, in reality, his eyes were wrinkled as tightly shut as they would go, as he moaned and whimpered in his sleep) and saw the green mist take the form of the white witch and her wolves, all standing above him and leering downwards.

"You can never kill us, we're you're family, the only family you'll ever be fit for," a slithering voice came down from the mist.

" _You_ are _not_ my family," he said through his teeth.

"Don't you see? Anything or anyone else you touch suffers, you stupid boy," said the mist-witch. "What about her?" She and the misty shapes of the wolves glanced down simultaneously at Lucy, sleeping peacefully at his side. "You think you have a family with her, with the little Narnian princess? No chance. You've only ruined her life."

"I have not!"

"Haven't you? The stone knife you took from me is to be used as evidence against her, isn't it? It's your fault she can never marry someone decent, someone her parents know is right for her, and it's your fault she's accused of witchcraft; all because you were so afraid of losing her."

"That's not true!" he shouted, tears stinging his eyes.

"Don't bother pretending," said the mist-wolf that looked the most like Maugrim. "Remember, I know what scares you. You can't lie to me-to any of us."

"Stop it," cried Edmund hoarsely. "I don't believe you; you're wrong, and…and…and you _are_ dead! You are!"

"Do you want to know what's going to happen to her when you get back to Narnia?" said the mist-witch, in a voice that was both silky and icy at the same time.

Before he could answer, the witch and her wolves were transformed, still green and cloudy, into a blazing emerald fire which was flashing all around Lucy.

Terrified, Edmund let out a wordless scream and sat up, his eyes opening for real now as he awoke, panting for breath, his heart a drum in his chest and the blood pounding in his ears and cheeks, sweat dripping down his forehead.

The green mist and the fire were gone. All that was there to greet him were the scowls of homeless teenagers, angered that his screaming had roused them, and Lucy waking up at his side, looking concerned.

"He has nightmares?" snapped the long-banged boy, fuming. "You might have said so! I en't losing sleep over this." He grabbed Edmund by the arm, pulled him up, and said, "Go to the backstage, now!"

Edmund didn't see a reason to fight this stupid, irritable boy, and he was still very shaken up from the nightmare, so he simply bent down and touched Lucy's shoulder. "Come on, let's go then."

"No, no," said the boy, a few others standing behind him now. "Leave her. We don't mind _her_."

He really didn't like the way some of those boys were looking at her, and while he was compliant enough about going backstage to sleep, regardless of the conditions, which he was sure couldn't be very good since no one else seemed to want to sleep there, though that might have been because they were afraid to be alone, he was not about to let them keep Lucy here. Frankly, Edmund didn't trust these chaps to be honourable and would have sooner thrown Lucy into a pit full of rabid, starving hyenas than let her sleep here without his protection. Sure, there were plenty of other females about, but it wasn't as if he could really count on any of them to stick up for her if danger arose.

"No," said Edmund, leaning close to the boy's face, his expression very 'no nonsense' and an air of kingly authority hanging around him, "I think not."

And just like that, they let him take his wife and go to the backstage to sleep. There was a draft back there, but it wasn't as bad as it might have been, and they got through it together.

Shortly before dawn, Lucy dreamed she was back in the dinning hall, looking into a mirrored-wall, and Aslan was reflected in the mirror, speaking to her.

"Dear heart, the place you have come to is in England. There is someone you and Edmund must meet. You need not fear, for this person will give you good help when you find him. You will know him, when you do, because he will be the first and only person in that world who will ask you to do something in my name."

"Oh, Aslan," she cried, "but where should we look-"

Her eyes shot open and it was morning.

Edmund was already awake, sitting up beside her, waiting for her to get up so they could leave the theater.


	21. The Doctor

"Have you noticed," said Lucy thoughtfully as she and Edmund walked the streets of London somewhat aimlessly, not sure where they should go, "that everybody here only seems to speak a very broken-sounding version of Archenland-English? I mean, we haven't spoken in anything but English since we got here, either, of course, I've realized that, too, but it still seems odd, the way the people here pronounce things sometimes; especially the children in the theater we spent the night in."

"Well, not everyone is lucky enough to be raised in a castle and have language tutors, I suppose," Edmund said, shrugging. "And I guess Archenland-English _would_ have come from England; it makes sense. After all, it hasn't ever been traced back further than the time it's supposed that King Peter lived in Narnia, so he could have been the one to bring it to our world."

"I wish I knew where this person Aslan wants us to meet is," Lucy sighed, shaking her head.

"Me, too," said Edmund. "We can't just walk around like this for ever. Are you sure it wasn't just an ordinary dream? I mean, I had some weird dreams last night as well, you know."

"Edmund, I'm telling you, my mind didn't make this up!" She folded her arms across her chest. "I know Aslan when I see him; it doesn't matter where or how. And I know when he wants me to do something."

"All right, all right," Edmund gave in calmly. "I believe you. I mean, we're here, aren't we?"

Lucy smiled. "You're the best, Ed."

"I know." He winked at her.

"I suppose there isn't any chance of breakfast." She knew they didn't know much about money in this world, so buying breakfast seemed impossible. "But I guess when we find who we're looking for, he can give us something to eat."

"I hope we find him soon, then, I'm bloody starving," grumbled Edmund.

"I think we're supposed to go in there." Lucy pointed to a building (which turned out to be a subway station).

"Why?" Edmund crinkled his forehead.

"I just have a feeling."

There was a stone statue of a lion only a foot or so in front of the station. "Does that" -Edmund motioned at the stone lion- "have anything to do with your 'feeling'?"

"Maybe." Lucy cocked her head at him and screwed up her face into a 'sad' expression. "Please come with me? It _could_ be a sign."

"Fine," he said, slumping his shoulders in an exaggeratedly tired manner, as though it was a great sacrifice for him, though secretly he thought she might just be right (Lucy had a way of knowing these things).

Together they crossed the street and entered the crowded station. Although they tried to stay out of everyone's way, some big-shot galoot sporting a gold watch and an expensive leather briefcase still managed to accidentally-thanks to indifferent carelessness and stupidity-bang the toes of his overly blackened shoes into Lucy's bad ankle so hard it made her gasp and drop to the ground.

"Idiot," barked Edmund as the man muttered a highly insincere, "So-ree," and then hastily moved on, too busy to actually make sure the girl he'd knocked down was even unharmed.

Lucy fought against tears, knowing she shouldn't cry, but also aware that her ankle really, really hurt, a dark purple bruise blooming very unbecomingly over where there was already a nasty only partially healed scar thanks to Maugrim.

Lifting her up, telling her to keep her weight on him so that she didn't go down on the wrong ankle and make it worse (as impossible as that might have seemed), Edmund helped his wife up onto an empty platform bench.

"By Jove, that bugger kicked you hard," snapped Edmund, looking over his shoulder angrily, wondering if he could still spot that worthless weasel in the crowd or not.

When he looked back, he was surprised to see an old man, in his seventies or perhaps early eighties, crouched down in front of the bench, examining Lucy's ankle as if it were a very run of the mill sort of thing to be doing.

All right, where the devil had _he_ come from?

"Um, excuse me," said Edmund, trying to keep his voice level, "who in the blazes…"

"Your friend's ankle is pretty messed up," the old man said, in a voice that sounded surprisingly strong and even the slightest bit forceful, as if he was of the kind that's little used to having his will crossed.

"Yes, I can see that, thank you," Edmund grouched. If the man hadn't been elderly, the count might have shoved him out of the way, but proper respect kept him from doing any such thing.

Lucy said nothing, grimacing, being in a great deal of pain after all, but she already liked this man very much, though she'd not known him for more than two or three minutes at best. He just had a way about him that made you know he was good when you looked at him; a fatherly, caring, taking-charge kind of presence.

The old man's eyes were blue and his hair, which was white, looked as if it might have been golden once. His wrinkled yet well-aged face was clean-shaven.

"Listen, it's all right," he said, noticing how uncomfortable and defensive Edmund was; "I'm a doctor."

"We don't have any money for a physician, not really," Edmund felt compelled to tell him.

The man chuckled and waved that off. "Doesn't matter, I've got more money landing on my head than I know what to do with sometimes."

"Good to know," Edmund replied dryly.

"What's your name, Sweetheart?" the doctor asked Lucy, giving her a gentle smile.

"Lucy," she said, swallowing hard, wincing. "Lucy Pevensie."

His smile widened. "Isn't that funny?"

"Isn't what funny?" asked Edmund.

"My surname is Pevensie, too," the doctor told them. "How about that?"

"Really?" Lucy blinked at him.

He nodded. "I wouldn't lie to you."

Edmund's stomach growled loudly.

"Goodness!" exclaimed the doctor, twisting his neck to look over at the count. "When did you last eat?"

"Yesterday," he told him.

"Well, how about this, then," the doctor offered; "I would like to take a better look at that ankle, I'm guessing this isn't the best place to do so, and clearly you could stand to eat something, so I could take the both of you back to my house and have the cook fix something."

"You've got a cook?" asked Lucy, caught between being impressed and slightly appalled that anyone who lived in a city where some persons had to huddle in an abandoned theater, or an unwatched doorway, for warmth at night had servants just like she-a princess-had had back at Cair Paravel.

He nodded. "Is that a yes?"

Lucy almost agreed, but Edmund cut her off with, "Look here, thanks awfully for the thought, but we don't know you." His stomach growled again, traitorously.

"You can trust me," said the doctor, "I swear."

"We don't know…" Lucy's voice wavered, her resolve to refuse Doctor Pevensie's generous offer not nearly as strong as her husband's was.

"There's toast, and tea, and cakes," he went on.

"We probably shouldn't," sighed Lucy.

"And I don't do this for just anyone," the doctor announced, "but, perhaps, we can get the cook to break into the sardines."

"Well, I suppose we could come, for a little while." She started to give in altogether, already feeling like this doctor was an old friend she'd known practically all her life. "If you have sardines."

"Lucy!" snapped Edmund.

"Oh, please do let's go with him, Ed!" she pleaded. "You know I can't really keep on walking about all of this London place now, not with my ankle, and we're both so hungry and tired…and I'm sure this man wouldn't wrong us. He may even be a relation, of a kind, for all we know."

A relation in another world? Why did that ring a bell rather than sound completely and totally absurd? Edmund wasn't sure, and the air rattling round and round in his stomach was making it hard to think straight. He and Lucy simply couldn't go on, pressing along on their own, for much longer; one of them was bound to pass out (and, honestly, he wasn't certain it would necessarily be _Lucy_ who keeled over first, either) sooner or later.

"Please, in the name of Aslan," blurted the doctor, not sure why he thought-or perhaps knew-that these two would know about Aslan, "do come with me, my honour wouldn't stand to leave you here."

"Edmund!" gasped Lucy, her eyes widening. "It's _him_ , then! This doctor's the one Aslan wanted us to meet!"

"Aslan sent you?" the old man's eyes sparkled. "You don't mean to tell me you're from Narnia? My beloved Narnia?"

"Yes," blurted Lucy, breathlessly, holding out her hands to him, "we _are_! We are from Narnia!"

Leaning forward, the old man burst into tears of joy and kissed Lucy on the forehead. "I've not heard of my country since...well, since I left, to tell you the truth. Oh, I feel as if my heart could burst from excitement! To meet real Narnians, and _here_ , of all places…"

Suddenly it came back to Edmund what Lucy had said the night they'd gotten married about the possibility of Peter still being alive in England; and he couldn't help but think that…this man…well, his last name was Pevensie _and_ he was a doctor…

"High King Peter?" whispered the count into the doctor's ear before he could lose his nerve.

"You know me?" gasped the doctor, gazing at Edmund with pure, unwatered-down amazement.

Realizing that what he had said to Lucy before-that they didn't know Peter-was wrong, that they knew him as well as they knew themselves, Edmund smirked and said, "Yeah, we know you really well."

"I want to hear everything," said Peter. "But first I'm going to go out to the phone box and call my driver to come and pick us up. I don't usually frequent subway stations, but I had a feeling I needed to be here today." He looked at Lucy and Edmund as if he had not seen anything more wonderful in years (maybe he hadn't). "And it seems I was not mistaken. Though, I'd not imagined anything it was anything in connection with Narnia."

The next thing Lucy knew, Edmund and Peter (who turned out to be quite strong for an old man) had helped her out of the subway station and into a spacey, very comfortable, black car driven by a quiet man who looked only a few years younger than the doctor he worked for and didn't seem to do much beyond carefully driving the car aside from tipping his blue-felt hat and nodding occasionally.

After a bit, the car pulled up a somewhat hilly private gravel road with beautiful, rolling green lawns, perfectly mowed, on either side. Beyond these lawns were a few pine trees, a single distinctive apple tree, and a dark wintergreen bush that sported some kind of little, very hard, blood-red berries which were probably not edible. And behind the trees, stood the house.

It had to be called a house, because it wasn't on the scale of a manor, exactly, but it might have qualified technically as a small (the word being used in a strictly comparative sense) mansion.

The walls were tan-coloured with pale yellow stucco and a few off-white bricks built into the foundation; the roof sloped down in a series of brown plated shingles; the front door was faded dark-stain cherry wood with a glass-front and a thin white curtain; and there was a Lion-shaped knocker near the doorknob.

Somewhere in the distance, a faint tinkling sound suggested a fountain somewhere on the property, blending in with a couple of far-off wind-chimes being lightly blown from the sides of a small gazebo in the garden near the wooden deck and the swimming pool.

"Well, somebody's done himself well," Edmund said under his breath.

"What?" Peter hadn't heard him.

"Nothing," he lied hastily.

Lucy's statement was more pure, and thus more appropriate. "Your house is so beautiful, Peter."

The old doctor who was once Narnia's greatest king smiled at her.

"It's so peaceful up here," Lucy went on. Unlike the fuss of the rest of the city, the doctor's place was a quiet-albeit extravagant-oasis in a desert of uncaring people and unsanitary pavement conditions. Even the air had a different smell to it; a smell sort of like a summer evening, even when it was one in the afternoon and dead in the middle of winter. "It has a dim, purple kind of smell," she described it.

Edmund snorted. "What rot."

But Peter said, "I know what you mean." He inhaled deeply. "Being here's like being someplace else; not like being in Narnia, but it's the closest thing you'll find here to being remind of it, believe me, I've looked. I think that's why I brought this place. I figured I might as well, as there wasn't much else to do with my money. I give half of it away to charity, and it still seems like I've got too much of it, even after I've paid the servants every month."

"I'm sure it's an affliction most people wouldn't mind having," Edmund stated.

"Edmund!" Lucy frowned at her husband, worried he would offend their friend and high king.

"No, Lu, it's all right," said Peter. Then, "You don't mind if I call you Lu, do you, Lucy Pevensie?"

Lucy shook her head. "I don't mind." When she'd imagined him, as younger golden-headed boy, playing with her at Cair Paravel, that's what he had called her-and what many of her friends and family did, anyhow. It seemed only right that he should call her that now, too.

A housekeeper as seriously-disposed as Mrs. Macready but rounder in the face and body and somehow less imposing in her manner of being took Peter's coat, and offered to take Edmund and Lucy's in a monotone before realizing they had none for her to take. She offered to take Lucy's sweater, amending her former statement, the damage being done and no need to cry over spilt milk, knowing the doctor wouldn't care at any rate, but Lucy said no thanks, deciding to wear the sweater until she was sure of how warm or cold it would be in the house.

Peter took them into the room that was called the tea room by whomever had built and occupied the house before he'd brought it. He himself had had no use for a tea room on a regular basis. The doctor either took his tea and breakfast in his bedroom or outside, depending on the weather; and he had his other meals in the kitchen with the servants (he liked talking to them, as he didn't have many others to converse with, no real family of his own in England any longer). If, though it was a rarity he had guests, they ate in the overly-formal dinning room.

Edmund and Lucy, poor things, didn't seem up for formalities. They were starving and exhausted. So the tea room was the obvious choice. There was no ramifications on licking one's fingers in the tea room, and there were no rules against smacking one's lips at a small tea table. He wouldn't have put any such rules on them himself, of course, regardless of where they ate, but the dinning room had an overbearingness about it that made such rules, not spoken and enforced, but implied, even to the very freest of free spirits.

The tea room was all white; the walls were white, the table and tablecloth were white, the wooden frame around the mirror on the mantle over the white fireplace was white (dull gray where the paint appeared to be peeling off a bit), and the never-drawn curtains were white. For some reason it seemed a crime to close curtains and block off sunlight or moonlight from a room that seemed to be idyllic in the light and unnatural in darkness, as if it didn't belong; like a dead room from a ghost-town in a house that was otherwise fairly alive.

A lovely array of little sandwiches and cakes, along with a few meat-pies and the promised sardines, were put out for the two Narnian visitors.

Edmund fell-to without much waiting about, having no reservations about shoveling it all in, even thanking Peter for all this with his mouth full once or twice (he and Lucy's etiquette tutor back at Cair Paravel would have blushed with shame). Lucy ate a lot, too, and she did indeed smack her lips and lick her fingers well enough, but she didn't speak with her mouth full like Edmund did, though she had lots to say.

The Narnian Princess told Peter all about how she was his descendant, which brought tears to his eyes and caused him to lean over the table and kiss her forehead again, for in a manner of speaking, a lot of greats put aside, he was her grandfather, and grandparents can't help getting weepy over their grandchildren.

Then she told him about how she had been at school, and about the Rhindon Investigation Society, and how she had married Edmund and been accused of witchcraft.

Peter listened with rapid attention to this part, his jaw unrelaxed, remembering his own queen who had been accused of witchcraft.

The idea of a society named after his sword did intrigue him, however, and he couldn't resist asking, "Where exactly is Rhindon now, Edmund?"

"With the society," Edmund said, swallowing a mouthful of sandwich. "They took it from me when I tried to run away."

"Why would you try to run away?"

"I wanted to stop Lucy from getting taken by the witch-hunters like…" He had been about to say, "like Susan was," but then he thought that mightn't be called for, imagining how painful that memory must still be for Peter, even after all this time.

Yet, he knew what he meant whether he said it or not. "Mmm, I see." The old doctor dragged a cup of tea up to his lips and took a long time swallowing his sip.

After tea, Peter looked over Lucy's ankle again, tied it with a gauze, saying that the pressure would help her put more weight on it with less pain so it would be a little easier for her to walk without Edmund's shoulder, and suggested a couple of low doses of pain medicine.

As Lucy limped around, noticing a few things in the nearest rooms to where Peter had tried to make her ankle easier to bear, she noticed a grainy photograph on the wall of a man who was clearly Peter when he was a great deal younger standing next to a tired-looking woman with stringy butter-coloured hair and dark circles under her young eyes, sitting in an iron-backed garden chair.

She seemed like a nice lady, though she looked dangerously fragile. "Who is she?" Lucy asked.

Peter looked as if he were trying to decide whether or not to tell her. "My wife," he said, after a long pause.

Edmund almost choked on his own spit. "Wife?"

Lucy scowled, looking hurt. " _Susan_ is your wife." If he really was the man from those stories, Susan was the only one he belonged with; he was supposed to be with his queen, the woman who had given him a silver apple when they'd first met.

"Yes, but she was dead," said Peter, his expression withdrawn and rather pathetic.

None of this made sense or felt right at all. Lucy turned around and limped away, marching, as best as she could, down the corridor and out the door into the lawns and gardens.

"Lucy, wait!" Peter called after her.

"I'll go get her," Edmund told him.

"Edmund, I was without Susan for a long, long time," he said, as if he thought he owed this young man some kind of explanation.

"I understand," Edmund said, "really I do. But those stories, about you and Susan, they meant a lot to Lucy growing up, she can't just brush that off."

"I know," Peter sighed. "If you can get her to come back in, tell her I'll explain-or try to."

Edmund nodded. "I will."

He found his wife sitting out in the gazebo, watching a wind-chime being pushed back and forth by a playful, nonvindictive little breeze.

"Lucy, can I join you?" Edmund stood on the first step leading up into the gazebo, his hand resting on the side of the foundation.

"Sure," she said distantly, kicking her uninjured foot (which didn't touch the ground) under the gazebo's wooden bench.

He came in and sat beside her. "Lucy…"

"I know it's stupid," she said, trying not to cry. "But I guess I've always had this idea that he wouldn't ever get over her. It's bad enough seeing him an old man like that, though I know it's horrid of me to say that, since it's not Peter's fault he got old-he couldn't help that. It's just…"

He reached out, took one of her hands, and squeezed it. "I know."

"I guess he just wasn't what I expected he would be, not completely. I do like him, I think I see a little of the man from those stories in him, but…I don't know…I can't believe he got remarried."

"Honestly, Lu," said Edmund, "I don't think he's over Susan at all. Like you, I don't think he ever will be. He was probably very lonely, is all. Maybe he was just tired of being miserable."

"I don't want him to be miserable," said Lucy, not having thought of it like that before. "I want him to be happy."

"You know what?" Edmund half-smiled at her. "I think he was pretty happy talking to us, and if you wanted to go back inside…"

Lucy gave in. "All right. I suppose I shouldn't have gone off like that. Where do you think his wife is now? She didn't come out to greet him."

"Honestly, judging from his demeanor, though I could be wrong," Edmund told her, "I think she died, too."

"Oh, poor Peter!" said Lucy, once again wanting to cry, but for a slightly different reason now.

When the returned to the house, Peter took them into a parlor where they could all sit and talk, and told them about the wife in the photograph.

She had been an American, running away from a bad situation back home (parents disinherited her, first husband divorced her to marry someone else, a whole big mess) and she'd taken sick her very first week in England and was in need of a doctor. That was where Peter, who had just gotten his license and opened his practice, which was one of the precious few taking on new patients at the time, came in.

The woman's name, ironically, had been Susan, too, which was one of the reasons, though Peter hated to admit it, he had wanted to accept her case. The two of them became friends during her visits. She was nothing like _his_ Susan-not in looks nor in personality-but she was a good soul, and well meaning. He worried about her bad health frequently; even when she came into his office for a social visit, not a check-up or for any symptoms, she was coughing, or out of breath, or just plain weak.

This Susan had been frightened of going back to America when her visa expired, and Peter, worried she wouldn't survive the trip back, and wouldn't have anything worth returning to, even if by some miracle she did, had offered to marry her so she could stay in England. A marriage of convenience with a friend seemed like a better prospect than a trip she was too weak to go on, back to her own country where no one wanted her.

"One good thing about her," Peter told Edmund and Lucy, "is that, even though I never explained about Narnia, I did tell her that I'd been married before to a wife who was killed in a fire (which was more or less true), and she understood the way most women wouldn't. She never asked me to take off my first wedding ring, thanks be to the Lion; for I think we'd have had a row if she had, and I wouldn't have liked to quarrel with someone who could take on such dreadful coughing-fits as she could, poor thing."

"So that ring on your finger now," said Lucy, noticing Peter did still wear a golden band around his left ring-finger, "it's real Narnian gold; from your first marriage, with Queen Susan?"

He nodded, looking down sentimentally at the ring before continuing his story.

Being a doctor, Peter took pretty good care of the woman who's life he had probably saved by keeping her in England, but her lungs were weak and her immune system was dreadful; it was only a matter of a few years before she had to die.

The fever she hadn't pulled through had made her delirious, and she had been only vaguely aware of who Peter-at her bedside, looking up medical remedies in a thick, worn volume-even _was_ , though she knew he was someone important to her.

She had to ask him his name four times, and he told her, each time, again, as if it was the first time she'd asked that question.

Her last words had been, "Do you love me?"

"Yes," he'd said, putting the book down, sensing time was getting short and there wasn't going to be much else he could do.

"Well, I had that, at least," she said quietly, then promptly closed her eyes, never opening them again.

Lucy was crying by the time Peter finished the story, and Edmund was rubbing her back, trying both to comfort his wife and to hide the fact that his own eyes were misty as well.

After that there was nothing left to be said, and after the tears, there was only quiet silence, the kind that feels like nothing is going to happen again, which had to come to an end, too. So Peter showed both of his Narnian guests to the room they were to have while they stayed with him.

It was the very nicest room in the whole house, technically the master's suite, though Peter didn't use it for himself these days, preferring a small bedroom nearer to the servants' quarters, not liking to feel all alone in a large house. If he'd had a wife to share it with, he would have used the room, as it was, he felt as if there was no reason to, and that it would serve Edmund and Lucy perfectly.

The ceiling was very high because there was a sort of open-air loft above the room itself where the large four-poster bed and brick-and-marble fireplace and dark, soft-looking carpets were. It was like the upper story of a private library with shelves lined with books and mahogany railings round the parapet on the edge where the loft ended and it was only open-air between it and the bedroom below.

A grandfather clock, near the bed, stopped ticking as soon as they walked in, the pendulum ceasing its movement. Peter had to bend down and wind it up again.

Lucy saw her old ancestor's reflection in a mirror as he crouched, and his looking-glass reflection was young and his garments were Narnian; he crouched to be knighted and crowned by Aslan, not to wind a simple clock. She'd known it was him, of course, none of this would make a word of sense if she hadn't, but now, her own eyes truly saw it. And she was beyond glad to have met Narnian's greatest king for real, not in a dream or a game, or a vision of white horses.

It didn't bother her so much now that he was an old man, for he seemed resigned to the fact that his time was up, that he wasn't Narnia's leader anymore, knowing it was only right that Edmund was next in line, the next bearer of Rhindon, the one Narnia needed now to bring the Golden Age back.


	22. Safety Slowly Shattering

Safety. A word that some people never have to think about, while others face the prospect of fighting, all their lives through, because they are permitted by their circumstances to think of little else.

Some people get so used to expecting something to fall on their heads, to running, to being afraid every time they hear the sound of a footstep, or a key turning in a lock, or a bark-either of a dog or a wolf-in the night, thinking it is someone come to get them, to crying secretly so as to keep on appearing strong, that when they wake to find themselves free of nightmares, in a safe place where, at least for the moment, it seems as if nothing can touch them, they are overwhelmed with a kind of quiet ecstasy persons who have been sheltered all their lives can never understand.

It is like dreaming while awake. Everything feels more like a memory; the stale air of a room, the comforting ticking of a clock, the sense of muscles uncurling from tenseness into an almost childishly relaxed state.

This doesn't make the person who feels this any weaker, or even more sentimental than others, not in the least, and people who have not felt that quietness, that sense of security where they realize their heart no longer thumps painfully in their chest in the stillness of a room upon waking up in it, can have no understanding of such emotions.

It is not unlike the way Narnians might describe Aslan's country if you should ask them about it: you can't know until you get there; you can't know until you experience it for yourself. And that's just that; it is what it is.

Edmund, upon waking in Peter's house for the first time, felt this feeling of reassuring safety for himself, washing over him more gently than any wave he had ever known.

He woke twice.

The first time was in the middle of the night when the room was still dark, finding himself untroubled and his body unaccustomed to waking without even the slightest twinge of panic building up inside.

Blinking in the darkness, he could see very little, just the outline of the parapet and railing on the loft above, and the dim shape of the grandfather clock, and the contours of two of the four-posters that made up the frame of the bed he was on.

Looking down, he could see Lucy sleeping with one of his arms around her waist.

The count sighed, closed his eyes again, and fell back asleep.

The second time he woke was in the morning around seven of the clock. Edmund was surprised to register that he'd had no nightmares during the night, and the first thing his eyes landed on when they opened was an artificial flower-dark red in colour, either a poppy or a rosebud, perhaps-sticking out of a crystal vase on a silver rolling food-cart that had been left near the grandfather clock while he was asleep.

The flower suggested both men and women servants in the staff. No man would think to put any kind of flower-real or not-with a tray of food unless he was bringing his sweetheart breakfast in bed or something, blinded by love from his usual state of cluelessness to that sort of thing, without a woman's suggestion. But the fact that the flower was artificial made it clear that this was dominantly a man's home, in spite of its womanly tidiness, including the lack of tobacco-ash in any of the carpets (not that Edmund thought a _doctor's_ house was likely to be a hot-bed for tobacco, at any rate), for real flowers died, and men would forget to replace them, so the female servants, if they wanted anything pretty in that house, had to improvise; not that they minded very much, because, really, you couldn't expect too much in the way of decorations from any mere _man_.

The breakfast itself, laid out around the flower, was splendid. Two bottles of milk, several large sausages, scrambled eggs, some bacon, something like fried potatoes, a jug of sweet cream, apple juice, and some kind of dried fig that doctors-thanks to their studying-know is good for digestion. There was also a little bit of medicated tea for Lucy's ankle, as well; Peter promised it would make the bone stronger and help with her recovery.

The smell of still air and breakfast was so soothing. How funny to feel so safe, so much like seeing the world through the eyes of a different person, a luckier person.

Edmund took all this in before he realized Lucy wasn't with him in the bed. Crinkling his brow, he scanned the room for her, stunned to find that his mind did not automatically launch into 'what if she's been captured?' mode by default, feeling that, as long as she was on Peter's property, she was quite safe. What witch-hunter could have followed them through to this other world? And what disreputable person would be allowed within a mile of this luxurious house where they were not welcome? And what servant that a former high king would consent to hire could be dangerous? The answer seemed to be a big, fat _none_.

Sure enough, there was the shuffle of feet, of someone limping about on the loft above the room, and Edmund knew at once where Lucy was. He smiled to himself.

She was more of an early-riser by nature than he was, eager to look about and see what sort of things the doctor-her ancestor-kept in here. Mostly books, which was interesting in itself, but also a globe (which Lucy noticed was round, amazingly bizarre to her, as her own world was said to be flat), a gold-plated spyglass (also called a telescope), an electric torch in case of emergency that really should have been in the room below, having been placed up there by mistake, and a number of funny figurines; owls and hawks, and something that looked like a naked merman scowling and holding a pitchfork.

"Ahem." Edmund cleared his throat, looking up at her.

Startled, Lucy dropped the spyglass she was currently fingering, and it tumbled down passed the parapet and over the railing, onto the bed below, right next to Edmund, who picked it up and looked through it, pretending to study the loft with it while really just staring at his wife; in particular one of her shoulders which shone bare in the morning light because the nightshirt she'd borrowed was too big and had slipped a little on that side.

It took her a bit, but finally she caught on to exactly what had caught her husband's unwavering interest, and pulled it back up, making a mocking 'how dare you stare?' face at him. Edmund grunted and stopped looking through the spyglass, sighing with pretend annoyance.

"Good morning," she called down to him, leaning over the railing.

"Good morning," he shouted back up. "Did you eat any of the food they left yet?"

"No," said Lucy, "I was waiting for you to wake up first."

"Well, I'm awake now, so how about coming down?"

"All right." She used the small slatted (almost ladder-like) staircase to get back down to him, reentering the bedroom below.

They had breakfast and, under the sausage plate, Lucy found a note saying to put the dirty dishes on the dumbwaiter when they were done.

" _Dumb-Waiter_?" Edmund repeated, confused. They hadn't had them at Cair Paravel or at Coriakin's school, or anywhere else in Narnia that either of them had ever been.

"That's what it says," Lucy said, shrugging, crinkling her nose and reading the note over again.

There was a knock at the door, and Doctor Pevensie's voice asked, "Are you decent?"

They had put on the dressing-gowns Peter loaned them over their nightshirts, so they mostly were, although not changed into proper clothes just yet.

"Yeah, come in," Edmund told him.

Peter opened the door and, looking around, noticed with pleasure that some of the books in the loft above had been moved, there were finger-prints on the glass of the grandfather clock, and the spyglass was below instead of above; it was nice to see the room being lived in. Secretly, however vehemently he refused to move into the room himself, he disliked the thought that the room was never used, waiting pathetically for a resident that stubbornly refused to come.

"Good morning," said Peter cheerfully. "I wanted to take today off, but unfortunately I have at least two patient appointments I absolutely can't miss. Then there's also a chance that Mr. Conrad's wife will go into labor the second she sets foot in my office (with my luck, it's not unlikely); the woman should have begun lying-in weeks ago, except she took it into her head that she simply _had_ to take a trip to Paris France to see bloody Notre-Dame, and it's a miracle she's made it back without any complications."

Edmund and Lucy blinked at him incomprehensively.

The doctor sighed and shook his head. "Sorry, I'm not used to guests, especially Narnian relatives; I'd thought that part of my life was over a long time ago."

Lucy smiled at him encouragingly. "It's all right, you're doing fine."

"Glad to hear it," he said, smiling back. "Oh, and I wanted to tell you both you have the run of the place. Anything you want, ask. The staff is under orders to do whatever you say. I'll try to come back early since I don't have as many things I need to take care of in the afternoon. We have a wireless-wait, I forgot you won't know what that is, probably; just ask one of the servants if you're interested in finding out, I suppose."

And so Edmund and Lucy spent the day amusing themselves in the house of the doctor who had been high king over Narnia long before their time. It was one of the most relaxing days of their lives. There was a pool to lounge around when they felt lazy, and to jump in and splash each other when they didn't; there was the wireless, which turned out to be quite splendid; there was the house and the gardens in themselves to explore; there was a piano to mess around with; any number of books to look at and mull over; and there were even news-articles they found stashed away in an old picnic basket under a couch about Peter when he first opened his medical practice. And then there were the quiet moments they stole, as husbands and wives (all the more so if they're newly married) often will, to be alone together, locked in the room Peter had given them, a note left outside the door telling the staff they did not wish to be disturbed.

When Peter returned, later than he'd hoped, but still in time to take tea with his descendant and her husband, he asked them if they were enjoying themselves. They both said they were, very much, and Edmund asked-mouth full of scones-if he could pass the butter.

After tea they sat out on the gazebo, one of Peter's menservants, well-passed middle-aged, joining them, smoking a cigar.

"You know you shouldn't do that, John," said Doctor Pevensie, disapprovingly. "I'm the last person to judge a man's free will, and if a chap wants to smoke, usually I'll say nothing about it, but you know you have weak lungs. You'll kill yourself if you keep this up."

John rolled his eyes, apparently very secure in his long-time position in the doctor's house.

"Seriously, give me that; I can't watch this." Peter reached out and took the cigar away from him.

The man scowled. "Not fair."

"Well, that's life." Peter dropped the cigar on the ground and crushed it under his boot on the gazebo floor. "Besides, who works for who, here?"

"Don't you mean _whom_ , Sir?"

"No, because whom is plural, and there's only one of me so-" Peter stopped in the middle of his sentence, noticing Edmund and Lucy out of the corner of his eye; they were sitting there politely, but obviously, much as they were interested in Peter for his own sake, they weren't exactly enthralled watching him batter back and forth with a servant. "Say, why don't you two go and do something tonight?"

"Like what?" Edmund asked, lowering his eyebrows.

"Take Lucy out someplace nice for supper," Peter suggested, groaning as he lifted himself up off the gazebo's bench and pulled some money out of his pocket, pressing the notes into Edmund's hand. "You could both stand to _enjoy_ wandering the city, instead of being anxious about looking for anything or anyone. There's no telling when Aslan will call you back, so how about it?"

"Will you be all right?" Lucy asked, not considering that Peter had been alone in his house-or as alone as one could be with servants employed-for years and they had only been there for a little over a day. They already felt like a family, so it was only natural to ask.

"Fine, and if you need something fancy to wear, I think some of Susan's-that's the second Susan, by the way, I have very little of anything that belonged to my first-evening clothes are still around here somewhere. She was very petite, because of her illness; her clothes would fit you, Lucy." He stared off thoughtfully; his manservant looked down at the crushed cigar longingly.

Lucy ended up borrowing an evening-gown of a silvery-gold colour that went down to her ankles, and Peter loaned Edmund a sports jacket.

"You know, my friend," Peter stated, standing back to admire his work as John brushed a small piece of lint off of Edmund's shoulders, "that is a very good look for you."

"Yeah, add a crown and I'm practically ready for my coronation," Edmund joked, snorting lightly.

"Ignoring that statement for now," said Peter, cocking his head and fighting off a half-smile forming in the corner of his mouth, "I think you're both all set to go out."

Lucy threw her arms around her ancestor's neck and hugged him goodbye.

A warmth that Peter missed from his Narnian children-given him by the first Susan, his queen-after leaving that world and returning to England, though they'd all been grown-up by then, flowed through his veins. And for the first time he almost wished he and his second wife had been able to have children.

If they had, there might be grandchildren on a regular basis to hug him goodbye when they left, and kiss his cheek, and call him, 'grandfather'; he would have really loved that. Yet, part of him was glad that the second Susan had been too weak for children after all, because then there would be a bitter parting with any children or grandchildren they might have had. First, they would have lost their mother, inevitably, the woman wouldn't, even if she'd been a little stronger, have lived long, not with her health. And he knew, although he didn't want to tell Edmund or Lucy, hoping they'd be gone by then (while, paradoxly, half-wishing they could stay for ever), that he himself wasn't going to last much longer. Being a doctor, he knew how to keep his recently bad health, the fact that he was getting too old for his heart which was going bad, his lungs that were getting weaker with each passing day, and his slow digestion that made him eat less and feel sick to his stomach even when it was empty, under wraps. He knew how to keep himself alive as long as humanly possible under the circumstances; but, eventually, and probably sooner than he would like, he was going to collapse.

He was only human, after all, and a very old man now, at that.

Peter was actually feeling a little weak, as well as a little numb on the left side of his body, and he didn't want either Edmund or Lucy (especially not Lucy) to see him struggling against it through supper. If he could rest up a bit, he told himself, he would be fine by the time they got back.

Edmund and Lucy had their supper at a fancy restaurant and then went for a walk and saw the city lights with rather a different view from their previous one.

If any of the teenagers they had been with in the abandoned theater on their first night saw them walking about, they didn't recognize them. How could they, when they both looked grand and dressed up in rich clothes; an expensive-looking fur collar on the warm coat Peter had made sure Lucy left the house with, and a costly watch on Edmund's wrist so he could keep track of the hour?

"It's nice here," said Edmund, slipping an arm around his wife's shoulders. "Peaceful."

"No witch-hunters," Lucy teased.

"Thanks," Edmund sighed. "I was just starting to forget about that."

"Sorry."

"It's all right."

"Will they still be waiting for us when we get back?" Lucy wondered aloud.

"By the Lion, I hope not." But he feared it would be so, regardless.

"Do you think Headmaster Coriakin and the others-maybe even the students-know we've gone?"

"Well, if Marjorie knows," huffed Edmund, "then she can be doubly jealous of you."

"You're really mad at her, aren't you?"

"Well, aren't you?" He hated her for what she had called Lucy, and for being the puppet of a girl who's uncle was a witch-hunter just because that girl owned pretty things. It was just so…so…well, shallow. If she and Anne were such friends, then why did Marjorie even envy her so? Lucy had been Edmund's best friend since he was nine, and never once had he coveted anything belonging to her.

Lucy shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. I was, I think. But anger passes."

"Truly, in spite of everything?" Edmund asked.

She nodded. "It has. She can't understand these things, she can't understand us, she's just a foolish child."

"She wants a lot of growing up and getting over herself," commented the count. "Jill, at least, has a good head on her shoulders."

"Well, I would hope so, she's Aravis."

Edmund laughed. "You honestly believe that?"

"Why not?" Lucy giggled. "It's not any stranger than you being Peter-while Peter's still alive, mind you-and me being Susan."

"I suppose not." Her husband couldn't argue with that. "It's too bad we can't stay here."

Lucy shook her head and whispered, "That would be putting off change because of fear; I'm sure Aslan doesn't want that from us. It's probably the greatest temptation of all. Stronger than that looking-glass page, even. To put off any real change and just rest in mellowness. We can't do that, I don't think."

Edmund sighed. She was probably right, but it was hard to accept the notion that all this peace and comfort would just go away, vanish into nothing, when they returned to Narnia. No more quiet corners, just fighting to keep alive, to steer clear of the witch-hunters. Leaping straight into the line of fire, so to speak. That would take a lot of strength. Could Peter have done it when he was younger? Maybe, though it hadn't ended well in his time. In this generation, it was Edmund's turn; could he do it? He didn't know. That frightened him. He couldn't just turn the page of Lucy's _Myths and Legends of the Golden Age_ and find his answers, not if he wanted a happy ending. He had to figure things out for himself.

When they were driven back, via expensive car-service, to Peter's house, they got a bit of a shock. Another car, with an emergency siren, was leaving.

"Oh, Aslan, what's happened?" Lucy gasped.

John was waiting for them at the door front. "The master's had a stroke."

"Will he be all right?" Edmund wanted to know.

"For right now, this very second, he's okay," said John, sadly, wiping at his eyes with the back of his wrist, unable to hide his emotions completely. "But we had to call another doctor in. He's just left. He said that if Peter's heart has another attack, it won't be brutal like this one was; his heart will probably just slowly stop working."

Lucy began to cry, weeping steadily as Edmund embraced her and tried, rather hoarsely, to tell her everything was going to be fine, though it very probably wasn't.

"He wanted to see you both," John told them.

"Take us to him, then," said Edmund.


	23. And We're Back In The Dining Hall Again

The old doctor, his face beginning to look pale and hollow, was lying flat on his back on the bed in his room. His lips were parted just the slightest bit, as if almost gasping but not quite, leaving his expression, in spite of the apparent sickliness, overtly pensive-melancholy, even.

This Peter looked a great deal older even than the Peter Lucy had met at the subway station only the day before, and much, much older than the young boy who'd been her imaginary companion at Cair Paravel, or the brave warrior who had saved Narnia from a witch and been crowned high king in her favorite storybooks. It was almost unbearable, seeing his age, under these circumstances. She was a little afraid to approach the bedside. Perhaps Lucy knew, deep down, that this was goodbye.

For Edmund it was equally surreal. Was this really the man who had grinned and joked with them earlier? Could this person on his deathbed really be connected to the master of the house who had taken the cigar away from his manservant earlier, so lightheartedly? The same grandfatherly figure who had loaned him the sports jacket he was still wearing? It didn't seem right that he should being dying now. It felt as if Peter either should have died a long, long time ago, or else should never die at all, but, rather, live for ever. To die in front of them like this, after such a short time together, it didn't match up to the count of the Western March's ideals of justice at all. Lucy might think Aslan always knew what he was doing, but, at that exact moment, Edmund had his doubts. And there was also that selfish longing for Peter to live on so that he might advise him; he was scared to face up to what he must, to step up and become the next bearer of Rhindon, next high king of Narnia, on his own.

But he wouldn't be on his own; he'd have Lucy, still; just like Peter had had Susan. Had Swanwhite had anyone like that? She must have, though he wasn't in any of the mythology or history books. Had he died the same way as Susan? It was impossible to know, but not impossible to wonder about.

"Hang it all," croaked Peter, beckoning to them, "come here! I can't see either of you from all the way over there."

That broke the spell. Lucy ran, limping, all the rest of the way to her ancestor's bedside, tears streaming down her face. Edmund slowly followed behind her.

"Don't cry for me," said Peter softly, reaching over and squeezing one of her hands. "It's all right. I've lived a good life; in two worlds. That's more than most people can say. And I got to meet you and Edmund before my time came to an end. I can be satisfied with that."

"But, what if we don't meet again?"

"We will," he assured her. "In Aslan's Country. Kings and Queens all end up there sooner or later."

"It doesn't seem fair," said Edmund, choked up. "After all you went through, to just die, like this, so soon…"

"Fairness is relative," Peter told him. "I've had a chance to live, that's fair enough."

"Will you miss us?" Lucy ask-sobbed.

"Of course I will." Peter motioned, as best he could, his weak state considered, at the small nightstand near his bed with a single draw in the front. "Open that draw, Lucy, and take out what's in there."

Slowly, with trembling hands, she obeyed, and pulled out a letter in an unmarked envelope and a small object bound up inside of a handkerchief.

"Inside that handkerchief, you'll find the first Susan's-my queen's-wedding ring. I want you to have it; it seems only fitting."

Seeing how Peter had bound the ring up in a handkerchief, just as he himself had bound up the locket with Lucy's hair in it in one, Edmund thought they had a lot more in common in their personalities than simply having both killed a witch in Narnia.

"The letter," Peter went on, "was written by Queen Susan, but it wasn't for me. She said one day I would know who to give it to, and I never opened it; I promised Master Tumnus, you see."

"How do you know it was for us?" Edmund asked.

Peter forced a small grin. "I just know these things."

"We'll read it," Lucy promised, holding her ancestor's hand, "we will. And we'll be good to Narnia, you needn't worry. And we'll never forget you, never!"

"Lu, dear one, I've no doubts." He squeezed her hand once more before letting go and saying he wanted Edmund to come nearer.

Edmund and Lucy changed places so that Edmund was closest to Peter now.

"Edmund, don't be afraid to face the fire, to take on the kingship," the high king of old Narnia told him in a wise-sounding voice. "Heirs to the throne aren't made by birth, they're made by something greater. Aslan's will is for you to follow in my footsteps, but don't make my mistakes."

"Is there anything in particular I should do?" Edmund brokenly asked. "I don't know…I mean, how can I…it isn't just about Rhindon it's about…well, everything."

Peter, using the precious remaining strength he had left in him, slipped his wedding ring of real Narnian gold off of his finger and slid it on Edmund's. Lucy had Susan's, it was only fitting that Edmund should have his.

"There." Peter sank his head back into his pillows contentedly. "Now you have everything; Rhindon, a queen, and my ring. All you need to do is go and live. Live, fight. Sometimes that's the greatest test of how much you love something." His eyes flickered over to Lucy. "Or someone." Then he looked at Edmund again. "It comes down now to how much you're willing to fight for what you believe in. And the rest is up to your own actions, and to Aslan."

"Thank you," Edmund mumbled, not knowing what else to say.

"No, thank _you_ ," whispered Peter.

"For what?" The count crinkled his forehead.

"For protecting her," said Narnia's former high king, glancing over at Lucy again. "For keeping this queen safe, at least."

"But how do you know I will succeed?" Edmund wanted to know. Didn't Peter understand how horribly he could fail? That, when they returned to Narnia, there was always that nasty possibility that the witch-hunters would get to Lucy in spite of his best efforts?

One of Peter's eyes twitched, ever so faintly, as if in a wink. "I just know these things, Ed, I told you."

John, standing nearby, didn't understand most of what Peter was saying, and might have even thought him somewhat delusional with young friends humouring him, but it still broke his heart to see his master dying, as was shown by the fact that his previously spotless shirt-cuff that would make any gentleman's servant proud, was dotted with tears and snot on the back now, from wiping discreetly when no one's eyes were on him.

Peter closed his eyes. "Narnia is in good hands; I've not slept with such peace of mind in a long, long time."

"Peter?" blurted Lucy, suddenly feeling as if there was one less presence in the room. Her eyes flickered over to John, then to Edmund, who nodded. "He's…"

"Gone," said John, closing his own eyes and swallowing hard.

Lucy gulped at a fresh sob caught up inside of her throat and thrust herself into Edmund's side, one of his arms slipping around the middle of her shoulders as she cried into his collarbone.

Later, someone came to take the old doctor's body away. Lucy didn't care about seeing that; she stayed in the room he had given her and Edmund, resolving not even to watch his body being taken at all, playing sadly with the edges of the envelope Queen Susan's letter was enclosed in; Peter was gone, and that may have been his body they were carrying out, but it was just an empty shell now. There was no high king in that old man, not anymore. There was no one there, just a dead body.

It was Edmund who wondered if it wasn't a bit strange, seeing the body being carried away so commonly, when, if Peter had been able to stay in Narnia before he'd grown old and passed on, he'd have had a royal burial.

"I don't know that I would like to die so slowly," Edmund found himself saying later, when he and Lucy could finally talk about the matter without voices cracking and tears being forced back; "I think, if I had a choice, I'd rather die quick; like getting hit by a carriage-or, in this world-a train or a car."

"But if it's over too quickly," Lucy protested, "you don't live. It's just over in little more than a heartbeat. Pain, and the fear of it, shouldn't keep us from living. I think that's what Peter meant."

"I guess you're right, Lu," he sighed. Then, "How about opening Susan's letter? We promised him we would."

Lucy consented and slowly lifted the letter out of the envelope, unfolding it gently, as if afraid it would tear in her shaking hands.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, upon reading the greeting at the outset.

"What does it say?" Edmund asked, noting her surprised reaction.

"It addresses the reader as 'Countess of the Western March'," said Lucy, a little taken aback. "How could she have known…?"

"Really?" Edmund's eyebrows went up. "But that's impossible."

"Well, that's what I am," Lucy said, shrugging. "If I'm your wife and you're the count."

It was true that he had never spoken of his wife (much less thought) of her as such, since she already had the title of Princess of Narnia being King Frank's daughter, but that didn't matter. By all rights, she _was_ the countess. Only there was no way Susan could have known that, generations later, one of her descendants would marry the man who was the Count of the Western March at the time, was there? Unless that whole thing about all Centaur prophets being fakes wasn't actually a completely accurate belief in its entirety.

They were sitting on the bed in the room with the loft above them and the grandfather clock across. Lucy could see that the pendulum had stopped again; either Peter had not wound it tightly enough or something else was wrong with it, for it did not swing, and the time on the clock stood still.

In the glass in front of the pendulum, in spite of the weak lighting, Lucy thought she saw, as she held the letter up to read it aloud to herself and Edmund, the dim figure of a black-haired woman sitting down writing a letter with a quill pen. It was Susan she was seeing, she was certain of it. And whether it was her imagination or a vision, or a hallucination didn't seem to matter much at the time; she focused on the letter itself, only noticing the lady in the clock-glass out of the corners of her eyes, still writing, stopping only when Lucy herself stopped reading.

_To the Countess of the Western March and her lord._

"Lord?" Lucy paused to repeat. "What lord?"

"I think she means husband," Edmund explained, and would have chuckled slightly if the mood had been lighter. "That's how they sometimes used to refer to a woman's husband formally in the olden days."

" _To the Countess of the Western March and her lord_." She started from the beginning but didn't pause when she got to the end of the first sentence this time.

_Aslan has asked me to write this letter. Or rather, a dream about him, which probably means nothing at all, has. I do not know, and I do not understand. I don't know who you are, either, except that you are a countess, and not the current one, but one who is not yet born. (Alas I must be going mad from my suffering to think such absurd things.) But I do know that I am going to die; to be executed, for a crime I did not commit, and that my husband cannot save me. It is too late now. And I do not think any the less of him, for if he could save me, I know he would. I don't understand, either, why, if Aslan is so close, he has not come to rescue me. This is not something I could say to my husband, even I were allowed to see him now; oh, how I wish I was! I do not want him to think me faithless, or to know that I sometimes fear I have lost all hope or understanding of anything. Nothing seems sensible or worthwhile now._

_But, Countess, I saw the Lion in my dream and his serious, serious eyes, and I felt rather nervous, all knocking at the knees. I knew I daren't ask anything, especially not why he wouldn't deliver me. But I, jaw as hard as ice, listened. I do not know what the guards have been feeding me to make me dream so vividly and oddly. I miss my banquets in Cair Paravel's great hall, sitting by Peter's side. I am not suited to the life of a criminal at all; I like much better to be with my husband and children-even the one who has stolen my husband's throne now so that the others have gone into hiding._

_In my delusions and frightful night-visions, I am told of you taking my place one day, and I must say: I hope you are braver than I, and luckier, too. May the Lion remember you, as he seems to have forgotten me. Or perhaps, it is I who have learned to forget him, as if he wasn't even real, a long time ago. How should I know?_

_I shall leave this letter for Peter; if they will not let me see him, claiming I am too dangerous an influence, they can at least let me write to him. But I will make clear that it is not for his eyes. I feel as if he will know you when he meets you, so I will leave that between the Lion's paws. Let it be my final act of faith, if it is even worthy of being called such._

_I wish now that I'd concerned myself less with the social events here at Cair Paravel and spent more time with my family. How I miss them! I never see them, never! Always locked in this one little chamber with no less than two guards at a time watching over me. I don't like their stares. They are my subjects, they should not look at me so; furthermore, in regards to some of them, I am old enough to have birthed and mothered them. No respect in Narnia these days! Yours will be different, I pray._

_I wish I could tell you something useful, but I know not what that something might be. Only that I wish you well. May you never lose innocence and faith, be brave, help will come. For you, it will come. But you must not be blind in your innocence, you nor your lord. Know your true friends, but also your true enemy. Evil hides behind many things. Learn to see behind the masks._

_Now I must go. I can hear my son is throwing a ball on the floor above. I do not know why the boy in need of a smack across his bottom has declared I must be brought up to see what his rebellion has brought about. But he has. I'm sure he will look very handsome and know it, too. As he is not the one to be blamed for my imprisonment, you would think, my being his mother, he would let me out. But, alas, he knows I would side with his father, not him; that I think he is a hot-headed child and if anyone gave me a birch-rod, I would at once abandon my gentle nature and beat him. He deserves it. He is very stupid to think he can wear his father's crown, stolen, honourably. It sickens me, but I believe that if Peter were not still living, my son would find a way to have my sentence revoked and my marriage to someone else as an alliance (humph! I would sooner slit my own throat!). I will not see Peter, that is too much too hope for, as I'm sure he is still under restriction and house-arrest, but if I can see Tumnus. Ah, I know, I will give the letter to him; I know he is still loyal and one of the few that can get in to see the man who by all rights should still be high king without question._

_May Narnia be a different place in your time,_

_Queen Susan of Narnia_

"Oh, so _that's_ what happened!" said Edmund. "I see it now. One of her sons, probably the one Father is descended from, over-threw Peter. But I don't know what Susan's betrayal was."

"I don't think she would write it down," Lucy mused, piteously. "She might have been too ashamed. It could have been anything. If she did dabble in magic by accident, like I did, well, she wouldn't want to admit that. _I_ didn't want to. Or it could be that she forgot Aslan, in a way. No one would want to admit that. I think it was brave of her even to write as much as she did."

"Lucy," Edmund said, suddenly going off-topic, "am I losing my mind or do I hear the clock ticking even though the pendulum's not moving?"

"That's not a ticking at all," Lucy gasped, breathlessly, hardly daring to believe it.

It was like the almost, but not quite, noiseless pad-padding of a large paw on wood and carpet.

The future high queen who was also the countess of the Western Marsh, turned and looked, her face flushed with delight, as if she had momentarily forgotten Peter's death, over her shoulder, to see Aslan himself coming towards them.

"Oh, Aslan!" she cried, springing up from the bed, bounding over to him, and throwing her arms round his neck, burying her face in his thick golden mane. "You're in this world, too, aren't you?"

"Yes," said the great Lion, "I am. I am in all worlds, for there is a way into my country through all worlds."

"Oh, I see," said Lucy, still rather out of breath. "And, may I ask…"

"Ask your question, dear heart," said Aslan gently.

Removing her face from his mane, she swallowed and said, "Is Peter with Susan-I mean, the first Susan, the queen-in your country now? Did Susan make it there? Was she waiting for him?"

"You can only know who is there when you get there for yourself," Aslan told her, not without a touch of grave seriousness that she knew was not to be tossed aside in his tone. "And you cannot go there, not yet, because once you go, you never return."

Lucy looked disappointed. "But one day…one day, Ed and I both can go there, can't we?"

The Lion nodded. "My country was made for noble hearts like yours, it is always ready for you; one day, you will be ready for it."

"And for now," Lucy queried, "is there something more we're to do in this world?'

"Actually," said Edmund, standing behind her now, looking into the Lion's eyes-silently commutating with him, it appeared, "I think it's time we went home, Lu."

"Home?"

"Back to Narnia, to school."

"But," she faltered, "I thought you loved it here."

"I do," Edmund told her. "But I also love our family-Frank and Helen, Father and Mum-and I love our country, the one we're supposed to fight for. I even love (but I'll deny it if you tell anyone) Coriakin's school. The Narnians…they need us, Lucy."

"May we come back someday?" Lucy wanted to know, looking away from her husband to Aslan again.

"You and England may yet have need of each other," Aslan told them. "Come, I will open a door that will take you both back to Narnia."

Embracing Aslan one last time, Lucy sighed and slipped the Narnian gold wedding ring Peter had given her bound in the handkerchief onto her left ring finger. She did not care very much about taking anything else with her (Edmund was still wearing his own).

Aslan roared, and the loft above the room became a swirling, yet strangely reflective, darkness.

He told Edmund and Lucy to go up into it, planting a quick lion-kiss on each of their foreheads. They obeyed and climbed until the faint reflective light and darkness above engulfed them.

Then they found they were sitting on a table in the dinning hall of Coriakin's boarding school in Narnia once again. No time at all had gone by, no one had missed them, for it was as if they had never left to begin with.

Their Narnian clothes were on them again (Lucy wearing Edmund's doublet once more), their English ones gone without so much as a mist or a flash, or a warning of any sort. But Peter and Susan's rings remained on their fingers, as solid and real and unchanging as ever.

"Bother!" said Edmund.

"What is it?" Lucy whipped her head round to look at him worriedly.

"I left that emergency torch-the electric one-behind in England!" He had wanted to bring it back with him, thinking it might be useful, not considering what he would do when the battery (which _had_ been almost new, though) ran out; but that might have been because he didn't know much about batteries to begin with.

Lucy giggled softly and shook her head. She could hardly believe this had all happened, and yet, it had. "It's all right, Ed, I've forgotten Susan's letter there."

"It's probably for the best," Edmund decided.

"How so?"

"Well, if anyone in this world read it, they would think her weak, and stupid. Probably vain, too. They wouldn't understand, not like us."

"No, they wouldn't," she admited. "Aslan knew that."

"I'm glad we didn't run away tonight after all, we needed to meet Peter, even if it was just to realize we'd both known him all along."

"I supposed we would, our stories being so similar."

"Lu, is that the closest you will come to saying 'I told you so'?"

She scooted a little closer to him. "Yes."

"Thanks." He kissed her hairline and resumed waiting for the Rhindon Investigation Society to come back and let them out of the bloody dinning hall already.


	24. Just For Tonight

As the days began to pass, the witch-hunters not returning to the school for Lucy, in spite of their threats upon leaving, it is possible that some members of the Rhindon Investigation Society thought the king and queen were in the clear; but Edmund wasn't the kind to look at the matter in the 'iceberg' fashion so to speak. He knew there was more to the conspiracy than was visible and, very painstakingly, suffered himself to return to paranoia and uncomfortable tension, waiting for the hammer to drop.

After being let out of the dinning hall the morning after their attempted escape, things had returned to their regular routine for the most part, the major exception to the rule being that Edmund and Lucy were not permitted to go anywhere-and if any of the other students happened to wonder why such was the case, and do their thinking aloud, Coriakin or Professor Kirke gave such fierce stern looks as responses that instantly silenced even the most persistent of pupils.

Rhindon was returned to Edmund, as promised. And the future high king didn't try to take his wife and run away again, even though he was often tempted to. Peter hadn't said it boiled down to how much Edmund was willing to _hide_ from what he believed in, he hadn't recommended _flight_ ; he had made it clear that there was no way out of fighting. If Edmund loved Lucy and Narnia, he had to fight for them.

Relations with the other students, on a social basis, continued to be strained. Oh, it was all right where Jill and Caspian were concerned, as well as with anyone else who hadn't taken Marjorie's part and refused, by default, to listen to Edmund's-at times rather forceful-explanations as to what had really happened between himself and Lucy. But those very ones who refused to listen, including Anne Featherstone's friends (because Anne ruled them entirely and was still bent on keeping Marjorie thinking highly of her, which really wasn't that hard) liked nothing better than to make Lucy's school life as uncomfortable as possible, to put it lightly. And no amount of punishments from the headmaster and threats from Caspian or Edmund could lessen their blows.

They were careful about the way they did things. There was something of an art to every mean thing they did. Moving Lucy's chair out of the way at just the right moment when no one (not even Edmund) was watching, right before she sat down; making occasional cruel or lewd comments when she passed but being sure to time them exactly right so that only the princess herself could hear them; purposefully walking off when Lucy and Edmund approached; pinching Lucy's compostion on High King Peter's downfall before she could hand it in to Professor Kirke (yes, she and Edmund still had to write it, even after everything that had happened); truly, there seemed to be no end of little ways to show their disapproval of her.

Lucy did her best to bear everything as cheerfully as possible. After all, no matter what they did to her, she still had Edmund; nothing they could possibly do would change that. Sometimes, though, it was hard not to be sad or sorry for herself, and she would cry, wishing Marjorie would listen to her and stop all this.

Unfortunately, Marjorie's hatred of her former chum was only fueled by the fact that Lucy was unwaveringly comforted by Edmund no matter what happened. Idiotically, she still believed the count liked _her_ , and that when he was with Lucy he was not in his right mind, under an enchantment, and now it seemed that their romantic relationship had moved on from existing only in Lucy's room (which now had a curtain hanging from the post of the entrance way, till they could replace the door) to being in plain sight. They wore matching gold rings now, walked to their classes and the dinning hall hand-in-hand, and once, spying on them alone in an empty corridor from behind a marble pillar, Marjorie had seen Edmund kiss Lucy's neck and fasten the chain of a silver locket around it.

In Marjorie's eyes, all this was to show off, dangling the count in front of her on purpose; the rings, looking so much like wedding-bands, to show her ownership and control over him, holding his hand whenever she passed by, stroking the locket while sitting at his side in the dinning hall, leaning on his shoulder in history class.

Of course Marjorie's view of all this was entirely wrong. The silver locket was the same one that Edmund had saved with a lock of Lucy's hair in it for years, so it had sentimental value to Lucy; harmlessly, meaning nothing by it, she'd run her fingers along it in the dinning hall. Marjorie's belief that Lucy had looked directly at her while doing it was unfounded. Her eyes may have passed that way briefly at one point, but they had never actually rested on Marjorie. After all, they weren't friends anymore. Holding her husband's hand was-for Lucy, a naturally affectionate young lady-simply something she did out of habit, and she didn't really care who saw their fingers intertwined.

The misunderstandings, despite the true story being almost as widely circulated as the lies, went on and on, not helped by the fact that several people had heard that witch-hunters had come into the building not so very long ago, and many were saying they had come for Lucy-who was really a witch. Marjorie would have had a lot of say about this, but Anne had cautioned her to be discreet, so she merely shrugged her shoulders with as much fake-indifference as she could manage to muster up. Surprisingly, no fingers pointed to Mr. Ketterley, the real magician in all this, as is so often the way with rumours.

One evening, sitting in her room, irritably looking out the window, Marjorie turned, her expression cross, to Anne, who was in the process of trying on a new hat her parents had sent her.

"I don't know about this one," mulled Anne, clicking her tongue. "It could become the newest fashion, or it could simply make a fool of me. Do you think my forehead looks too large with this hat, Marjorie? Be honest."

It didn't, and Marjorie was beginning to wonder if Anne already knew that and was merely prodding for compliments. "It looks perfect, I told you before."

"All right," said Anne defensively. "There's no need to be so grouchy about it."

"I'm sorry," Marjorie apologized. "I'm just in a bad mood."

"Lucy, right?"

She nodded. "Who else? Have you seen the way she's been acting lately? I hate watching her with him all the time. I thought you said reporting her as a witch would help, but Edmund is apparently not free of whatever spell she's put on him…he won't even _look_ at me now."

"Well, it's hardly _my_ fault that the little witch has taken to whoring herself in public with the Count of the Western March, now is it?" snapped Anne, suddenly wondering why she'd thought getting Marjorie on her side would be a good, useful thing to do; she was beginning to lose patience with her.

"Why didn't your uncle take her to prison or anything?" Marjorie demanded. "You told me the evidence would be enough to get her taken away, only she's still here and has got a tighter hold on him than ever. I saw him creep by Mrs. Macready to get into her room tonight, instead of going to his own; he's _always_ doing that now-a-days, haven't you noticed?"

Anne frowned and rubbed her forehead. " _Must_ you spy on him constantly? It's getting ridiculous."

"I'm only trying to be sure he's all right," Marjorie protested, meaning well. "We both know he's under a witch's spell! Why shouldn't I be concerned?"

"I'd give him some space to breathe if I were you," Anne told her. "It's getting ridiculous," she repeated.

"Look, is your uncle coming back to take Lucy away or not?"

"Sure he is," said Anne hurriedly, as if it were not her greatest concern right then; "be patient, won't you? You're giving me _such_ a headache, dear."

The door opened. Marjorie jumped; Anne, putting on eye make-up, messed up and cursed in a very unladylike manner. Jill entered the room, ignoring her roommates, despising the both of them at the moment. She picked up a book and sat down on her bed with it.

"How long are you going to keep this up, Jill?" Marjorie stormed over to her bedside and glared down at her.

Jill causally turned a page and crossed her legs. "I suppose until you stop being a perfect beast to Lucy."

"I cannot believe you're still on her side," she cried. "Surely you've seen how she's been acting!"

Putting one of her fingers between the leaves of the book to mark her place, Jill finally looked up, her expression very sharp. "All I've seen is a young woman who loves her husband very much."

"Husband?" scoffed Marjorie incredulously. "Edmund is _not_ her husband."

"He is," Jill insisted coolly, her eyes as hard as ice. "You refuse to believe it because you fancy him, that's all. And, since you appear not to know this already, all the mean tricks in the world will not make him stop loving her and start liking you."

"Don't listen to her, Marjorie," yawned Anne, rubbing away her mistake on her eye with a small washcloth. " _She_ doesn't understand."

"Marjorie, don't be a fool," snapped Jill tiredly, lifting up her book, intending to return to it momentarily. "For every half-glance Edmund has ever bothered to give you, Lucy has gotten a million full-on stares." She removed her finger and went back to reading.

"She's not your friend anymore," Anne reminded Marjorie, shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders. "She's only saying what Lucy wants you to believe. Nothing but a traitor to us now."

"I will not stay here and be insulted," Jill said, standing up and stuffing her book, as well as some clothes and a few other items, including a pillow and a heavy blanket, into her trunk. "I'm going to sleep someplace else. So there!"

Without another word, or another glance in their direction, she stormed out of the room, dragging her trunk behind her.

"Jill, wait!" Marjorie tried.

"Forget her," Anne said, waving it off. "More room for us without her, besides."

It was not until Jill had gotten more than two corridors away from her room, steaming mad, panting, not from her tiredness but from her aggravation alone, that she realized, standing there, trunk clamoring noisily as she continued to drag it, that she had nowhere to go.

She could presumably ask the headmaster to give her a different room, but if he refused, she knew she couldn't go back; she was too upset with her roommates to bear them just now. Jill needed a break, even if it was only for one night.

There was Lucy's room, of course, except, as she had a husband, that was off-limits; Edmund probably slept there most nights now. And according to Marjorie, who seemed to border on stalking the poor count lately, that was exactly where he was.

Which, however, did mean Caspian had two empty hammocks in his room now; Eustace's and Edmund's both being unoccupied. Jill didn't mind the notion of sleeping in a hammock one bit. The problem, though, was obviously what everyone would say. If they could go off horribly on Lucy who was _married_ to the man who came into her sleeping quarters at night, then what would they say about _her_ if they found out she was in Caspian's room?

But I'm _tired_ , Jill thought crankily, I don't care; I'm going to try to get by Drinian and ask Caspian if I can have one of the empty hammocks and that's that!

Her head held high, her chin clenched in a prim (though she did not mean to be) manner, and her nose in the air, she stormed off to where the boys' corridors were. As it was getting later, no one saw her, and she found Drinian had fallen asleep in his chair at the corridor entrance, so that was easy enough.

She knocked on Caspian's door and he opened it, looking rather shocked to see her standing there with her trunk.

"Hullo," said Jill, apologetically.

"Oh, it's you, then." It had taken him a moment to recognize her. "Are you all right?" His expression twisted into one of concern.

She shook her head. "Can I stay here with you?"

"I'm not sure that would be the best idea," Caspian said, furrowing his brow. "Why are you not in your room?"

"I've had a row with Marjorie and Anne," she explained shortly. "Please, can't I stay? Just for tonight?"

The Telmarine valedictorian looked over his shoulder, back into his room, at the two empty hammocks. It was against rules, but it seemed like it would be awful mean to refuse the poor girl and condemn her to going back to her venomous roommates. Marjorie was stupid, and Anne…well, Caspian thought if he'd had Anne for a roommate he would have slept on the roof in a rain-storm just to get away from her; he didn't blame Jill for trying to find someplace else to sleep.

"Well, all right," he gave in, holding the door open a little wider and turning his head both ways to make sure no one was watching. "Come in. But just for tonight."

"Oh, thank you!" Jill exclaimed, coming in.

"Here," said Caspian, bending down and picking up her trunk. "Let me help you with that."

"You don't have to."

"I know, but I don't mind." He gestured at the hammocks. "Where do you want to sleep? I'll put the trunk under whichever one you pick."

Jill picked Eustace's hammock and settled down in it comfortably, finding herself hoping that where ever its former occupant was right then, he was safe. She wished there was some way of turning him back into a human boy again so he could return to school; she missed him. Furthermore, Eustace Clarence Scrubb, for all his faults, would surely make a much better companion than the two fiends back in her own room.

Meanwhile, Edmund had gone to sleep early. Lucy had watched him sleep for a bit, reading a little of _Myths and Legends of the Golden Age_ and reaching out to wipe a bead of sweat off of his forehead with a handkerchief by turn.

It was a little strange how Edmund's sleeping pattern was never consistent. One night he would sleep so deeply that you could have walked by his bedside banging cymbals and playing the can-can on an accordion and he wouldn't have stirred; whereas, the next, he was so fitful, moaning and groaning, waking up, eyes wide, completely startled, by the slightest accidental kick to the foot from Lucy.

As for that night, it was a queer mix of both. His eyes were shut much too tightly, wrinkled at the lids from excess pressure. He did moan and thrash about a lot, but it would have taken a lot to have woken him all the same.

His wife knew his nightmares were getting steadily worse, although he seemed less and less inclined to tell her about them in detail as of lately, the same way he knew when she was frightened or in pain; it was their unbreakable entanglement.

"My poor Edmund," sighed Lucy, closing the heavy tome, getting up and putting it away, and, upon returning to bed, she lightly ran her fingers along one of her husband's dampened cheeks.

With wholly unnecessary care not to disturb him, she settled down next to him and curled up as close to Edmund as she dared when he was in such a state. After a bit, sleep overcame her, too.

Edmund dreamed of a room not unlike the one he and Lucy had stayed in during their short time with Peter in England; an open-air loft with a parapet and railing all around it above a furnished area below. The difference was that the room in his dream was not a bedroom, but looked more similar to a gentleman's club or a ballroom with beautifully polished hardwood flooring that practically glittered from its perfect upkeep; and above there were no books or curious items, only a few crude paintings that might have been of badly depicted wild animals with sour expressions on their blurred faces, or else the faded, dust-covered last portraits of old kings (of what sort of country, Edmund couldn't really say, nor did it matter) who had grown fat in their later years, lining the highest points on the walls.

He was walking along the loft, peering down over the railing. The count felt rather nauseated as a misty green smoke seemed to be following him around every which way he happened to walk, circling at his feet, ankles, and even knees, like it was preparing to swarm when he became too weak to fight against it and collapsed; he thought he might even vomit right over the railing at any given moment, but fought against that urge with all his might. His vision blurred, yet he tried his best to focus on what he was seeing anyway.

Below, there was obnoxious laughter. Pug and Gumpas, and some other men whom he could not identify but did not like because of their unpleasant faces, were down there with what was clearly a young woman in a hooded gray cloak. A single long curl of white-blonde hair came out from under the hood, but aside from that, and the vague outline of the bottom of a mouth, her face was hidden from him entirely.

Even as this woman turned and was evidently looking straight up at Edmund from under her hood, he could not make out much more than her chin.

"I know who you are," she called up to him. "You cannot hide from me!"

A slithery, hissing sound came from the green mist-trying to frighten him, no doubt.

"High King Peter," taunted the woman, "why do you not come down from there and fight us?"

Suddenly it struck Edmund exactly who these people were: they were none other than the Order Of The Dryads. How he knew this, he couldn't say, unless it was simply Gumpas and Pug's association with the woman and the others that made this all at once blaringly obvious to him.

"Peter…" called the woman, her voice becoming aggravatingly slow. "Peter…"

The green mist rose like a deadly gas, attempting to choke him. Edmund retched, expecting to see vomit fall from his open, gasping mouth and onto the floor below, where the 'dryads' were. Instead, he tumbled down, flipping over the railing on the parapet, to what-if it hadn't been a dream and had happened in reality-would have been an untimely death, ending in his head being cracked open like an egg. But he found, brushing himself off and standing up, his legs slightly sore though nothing else felt amiss, that he was unharmed.

"We made a mistake before," said the woman in the gray cloak. "But we know who you are; not a count, but the next high king."

"Leave me alone," he said dryly. His throat felt dry and he wanted to get outside of this room, away from these people, have something cold to drink, and breathe fresh, outdoor air.

The green mist took the form of a medium-sized dog that panted lovingly and rushed over to the woman's legs as if it were her pet.

"We know how to get to you…Peter…" laughed the woman.

"You don't." Edmund swallowed hard, feeling feverish. "Let me pass."

She and the mist-dog kept on blocking his path. "No. You haven't seen anything yet, Peter."

"Stop calling me that!" he shouted, getting fed up, his cheeks feeling like they were on fire.

"Bring out the little girl," said the woman, snapping her fingers.

Pug and Gumpas disappeared from the room, though Edmund could not see where they exited from, nor the doorway through which they returned when they reappeared, holding the arm of a frightened-faced little girl.

At first, Edmund didn't know who the child was and was confused. Then he recognized a little stuffed animal in the crook of her arm; a little dog with curly fur. Her hair was shorter, as he now remembered it had been years and years ago, but her eyes-even from that distance-and round face were unmistakable.

"Lucy?" He tried to walk over to her; the woman in the gray cloak went on persisting in getting in the way.

The green-mist-dog dispersed and seeped over to the little version of Lucy squatting helplessly, trying to free herself of a mean grip Pug had on the arm of hers that was not holding into the stuffed dog.

Edmund did not stop to think why on earth Lucy, who was only a little younger than he himself was, would appear here, in this unknown place, as young as on the day they'd met; he could only think about getting to her, because he was afraid of how quickly the green mist was swarming to her side. And it wasn't as if she could get away for herself and run off to safety, not with Pug holding her in place.

Without warning, the green mist became a green fire, in a circle all around Lucy, who started sobbing and crying out for help. Her arms were both wrapped around the little stuffed dog now and her knees were pulled in; Pug was no where in sight.

"You knew they would come back," hissed the woman.

The green fire did not spread to where Edmund and the woman stood, but it grew taller and taller around Lucy, till the count could no longer see her. Soon, he couldn't hear her anymore either.

"Lucy!" he screamed. Turning to the woman, he shouted, "What have you done to her? Let me help her, please!"

"The consort of the high king is doomed from the start," sighed the woman, waving his pleas off with a brisk hand-gesture. "You knew that, and you still married her, didn't you? So don't blame me. I didn't ruin her life, you did. Neither the evil forces nor the Order Of The Dryads put any of these words into your head; your mind speaks for itself."

The mist-fire flashed the brightest shade of emerald imaginable, then was gone. Lucy was not there, either burned up by the flames and turned to naught but fine, undetectable ash, or else faded along with the mist.

"What have you done with her?" cried Edmund, lunging forward, ready to brutally shove the woman out of the way by this point. "Where is she?"

The woman grasped his wrist and twisted.

He wrenched himself free. "Where is she?" he said again, his voice more frantic with each breath he took.

The next thing he knew, he was hand-to-hand fighting with the woman. One second he'd thrust her aside, the next she had shoved him hard, almost knocking him to the ground. She was stronger than her perfect nails and groomed appearance suggested.

Everything was green…then red…flashes of green sparks…light from Aslan knew where shinning reflectively off of the wooden floors, blinding him momentarily.

Then the count was pinning her down, squeezing her arms roughly. If only he could get her to stay down there, he could get up himself and search for Lucy, if only there were some guarantee she could be found! But he was not in his senses; his face was flushed, red as a beet, and he felt very sick, the fever spreading even down to the very tips of his toes, burning almost as hot as fire itself.

The woman, somehow having managed to keep her face hidden, her hood never once falling back to reveal who she was, got one hand free and promptly slapped him across the face.

"Edmund, get off of me!" But her voice no longer sounded like the woman he'd been fighting, the 'dryad' leader; it sounded like…

Waking up, safe in Lucy's room at Coriakin's boarding school, Edmund blinked down in the darkness. "Lucy?"

What had actually happened was this. Lucy had been sleeping peacefully until, suddenly, her husband had rolled over in his sleep and grasped the sides of her arms, pushing her down into the mattress.

She had woken up, seeing him on top of her, her arms beginning to ache from his painfully tight grip, and muttered, "What is it?"

Figuring out, in rather a muddled manner, that Edmund was asleep and apparently dreaming about fighting someone or some _thing_ , she had tried to wake him but made precious little progress. The harder she tried to pull herself away, the more he intensified his grasp.

"Wake up," she had tried croaking up at him. "By the Lion, wake up, Ed!"

Finally, nothing else for it, she managed to get one arm free and, although it brought a stream of steady tears to her eyes, struck her husband once, as hard as she could, across the face.

"Edmund, get off of me!"

His eyes shot open. "Lucy?"

"Thanks be," Lucy panted, rather out of breath. "I was starting to think you'd never wake up."

"What's going on?"

"I don't know. What were you dreaming about?"

He shook his head, plopping back onto his own side of the bed. "Did I hurt you?" His voice sounded so small.

Glancing over at him, Lucy saw that there were tears in his eyes and that he was rubbing one of his cheeks (the one she had smacked). "No, not too badly."

"Dear Aslan," he murmured. "How badly is 'not too badly', Lu?"

"My arms hurt a little, that's all."

"I'm so sorry." His voice cracked.

"Edmund, I'm fine."

He stood up. "I think maybe I should go back to my own room, just for tonight."

"Ed…" Lucy scooted across the bed and reached out for him. "Don't go. It was an accident. We're fine."

Edmund bent down and kissed her. "Just for tonight. In case I have another dream like that, all right?"

"Who's going to comfort you when you wake up?" she pointed out, tucking her knees under her and stretching up to kiss him back.

"You can comfort me tomorrow night." He bent down again and pulled up the arm of one of Lucy's nightshift's sleeves, trying to see how bad she was actually hurt. He did find one bruise, but it was thankfully minor. Not that it didn't shake him up a great deal anyway, still he was glad it wasn't worse.

Lifting the curtain and stepping outside of the room, Edmund took a few backwards steps before turning around and banging, most unfortunately, right into Mrs. Macready.

"This could only happen to me," muttered Edmund, under his breath.

"Young man," snapped Mrs. Macready, who did not listen to gossip of any kind-from youngsters or from adults-and so had heard no rumours regarding Edmund and Lucy's new relationship, nor the true story of it, "I trust you have an explanation for being in the princess's room unsupervised and without permission at this hour?"

The count sighed and blurted out, trying not to roll his eyes, "Well, basically, Lucy and I are this generation's repeat of an ancient Narnian legend, can communicate in an almost telepathic manner, and are actually husband and wife now." Edmund folded his arms across his chest, rather tired of all this. "Happy?"

"You cheeky brat." The housekeeper grabbed onto one of his ears and started pulling him down the corridor. "As if I haven't heard _that_ one before! I'm taking you back to your own room at once, where I will leave your punishment in Drinian's hands. But if you think I am not going to report you to the headmaster tomorrow, you're gravely mistaken. Oh, and this had better not happen again, Pevensie; you are one shenanigan shy of sleeping in the stables!"


	25. The Dryads Strike Back

"Mrs. Macready," said Headmaster Coriakin, trying-and, though it was strenuous, mostly succeeding-to keep a straight face as he spoke to the housekeeper for the girls' dormitories, "there has been a misunderstanding. Young Count Edmund Pevensie _is_ in fact married to the daughter of King Frank and Queen Helen."

"Headmaster, I'm sorry," Mrs. Macready replied; her face was stern, but there was a trace of a genuinely apologetic tone in her voice all the same. "I was not informed of anything regarding a marriage between any of the students in this school; and when the boy came out of her room looking pale as anything, quite out of his wits, answering me cheekily with such absurd comments, I naturally assumed there was rule breaking going about. I was under the impression that he might have been intoxicated and, not knowing he was telling the truth, assumed that his visit was outside of the bounds of the high level of propriety you hold this establishment to."

Still wanting to laugh, for it was a little funny when you really thought about it, the star kept control of himself, his emotions very nearly fully in check, and nodded in an understanding, seemly manner. "Very well. In future, however, there is no need to discourage the young man from visiting his wife."

Mrs. Macready had, as you have probably already figured out, reported early the following morning to Coriakin's office to tell him of Edmund's visit to Lucy's room the night before. Now, however, it was clear that she had misunderstood; but she still thought it was very rude of 'that Pevensie boy' to have sardonically loaded his mouth with all that gibberish regarding Narnian legends and telepathy.

She bobbed a quick curtsey to the Headmaster and showed herself out of the office.

On her way back to her many duties, she encountered Edmund and Lucy walking together and nodded to them, as if to say they had an understanding now, although begrudged to some degree.

"Think you'll miss it, Lu?" Edmund joked as Mrs. Macready walked off.

"Miss what?" she answered innocently.

"Me having to sneak in to see you in the middle of the night." He looked both ways and slipped an arm around her waist.

"Of course not," Lucy giggled, leaning into his arm, which felt warm against the small of her back. "It will be so much easier now to see each other whenever we want. Besides, your ear is still a little red."

He chuckled at that. Honestly, he was surprised the Macready hadn't managed to pull it all the way off last night, considering how hard she had tugged, dragging him back to his room to be with Caspian and-still unbeknownst to her-Jill Pole.

"Never-mind my ear," said Edmund after a pause. "How's the bruise on your arm?"

"Edmund, I told you it was fine," Lucy whispered, shaking her head.

"I'm sorry about last night," he told her, for what must have been at least the tenth time. "I didn't know I was fighting you."

"How many times must I tell you it's all right?" She sighed and reached up to touch the side of his face.

"I don't know what's wrong with me lately," he said, closing his eyes momentarily then opening them again, looking down at his wife compassionately. He had always suffered from nightmares, but the ones he'd been having as of late were more eerie than average; usually the past liked to torment him, only now it seemed his present and future wanted a turn and were much more vindictive and sadistic about it. "It's like I've been under a curse."

"Everything will be all right," Lucy said gently, pressing in even closer against him as he held onto her.

"I hope so," he began…then stopped, letting go of her waist and looking around anxiously. "Someone was listening to us."

Lucy crinkled her brow. "What?"

"I heard footsteps and what sounded like a sharp whisper."

"We _are_ in an open corridor," she pointed out, weakly, unsure of why she felt a twinge of fear prickling under her armpits.

"Come." Edmund grabbed her hand, peering, just once, nervously over his shoulder. "We'll be late for our lessons if we stay here much longer anyway."

As soon as they were gone, Marjorie and Anne's heads appeared, like a pixie and a brownie popping out from under a toadstool, behind a hanging tapestry depicting a long cross-stitch broadsword with a silver hilt.

At first it had been only Marjorie, spying again on her own, despite Anne's warnings that she ought not to, and when she had heard Edmund himself say the word 'curse' she had felt a sudden rush of hope. If the count was beginning to realize that he was under a spell, he might be more inclined to allowing her to help free him. Maybe he could even break free on his own; and then he would proclaim his true feelings for her, and Anne Featherstone's uncle would return and take Lucy away for being a wicked enchantress.

On that line of thought, Marjorie began to worry that perhaps Edmund's moment of clear thinking in which he almost saw the truth would pass before he could break free. She thought if she could rush out there and keep him on that line of thought, perhaps she could rescue him. And wouldn't he be _glad_! She would face down Lucy; the witch needed standing up to!

But Anne had come by and seen her about to approach Lucy and Edmund, and had grabbed her by the arm and dragged her back behind the tapestry, scolding her soundly for being so foolish.

"What were you thinking?" Anne demanded, glaring at her roommate, now that there was no chance of Edmund or Lucy over-hearing them.

"He's almost figured it out, Anne," said Marjorie, almost tearfully. "Lucy has him so trapped he can't break free on his own, though, I don't think. He knows he is cursed; he knows what she's doing to him. In the back of his mind, I'm sure he wants my help."

Anne wrinkled her nose and very nonchalantly muttered, "Yes, I'm sure he does." Then, "But it was so _thick_ of you to just try and talk to him like that; with _her_ around."

"I suppose it was," Marjorie whimpered in a small-sounding voice. "You don't think Lucy would have turned me into a toad or anything for trying to interfere, do you?"

"I don't know," snapped Anne crankily. "Why can you not just do as I say?"

"Because we aren't getting anywhere!"

"We would if you would stop being such a pest!"

Marjorie frowned and began to cry. "I am not a pest!"

"Calm yourself." Anne rolled her eyes. "You're being impossible. That is not how one of my friends is going to act."

Marjorie nodded and wiped at her eyes. Anne was right, she was being rather babyish; really, everything Anne had been doing was only meant to help her-and Edmund, for that matter-and she, in her impatience, wasn't proving very grateful, she thought. "I'm sorry."

"I don't know when my uncle is coming back," Anne told her, twisting her face into such an exaggerated expression of deep thought that it looked rather as if she were a bit constipated. "But I've been thinking…if only there were some way to catch him alone-Count Edmund, I mean-and then you could try and talk sense into him."

"I thought," said Marjorie slowly, still wiping at her eyes a little, "that you said talking would solve nothing."

"Not with Lucy, it wouldn't. But since my uncle is taking so long getting back, and you do want to help Edmund so badly, if we could catch him alone without that witch, maybe…we could try, just once."

"Supposing," Marjorie worried aloud, "he told Lucy about our attempt?"

Because Anne had a very different real plan than the fake one she was patronizing Marjorie with, she wasn't worried about that; but to keep her guise firm, she said, "We would lie and say he was mistaken, of course."

"It doesn't seem very certain," stated Marjorie, sounding not so stupid for the first time in a long while.

"Well none of our plans are, nothing is when you deal with witches."

"No, I suppose it wouldn't be."

"But he is always with Lucy," Anne pretended to lament.

"He often walks to her room alone in the evening so he can spend the night," Marjorie came up with.

"True," said Anne. "But how would we know which route he'd take on any given night?"

"I would," cried Marjorie, becoming excited. "Why, I've followed him before! And more than once! Don't you remember, Anne?"

"You could chart out his exact path, then?"

"Yes!"

"We'll do that." Anne grinned, mostly to herself. "This afternoon, after our lessons are done with for the day, we'll chart it out. And tomorrow night, once we've had sufficient time to plan out exactly how we will approach him, you and I can try to relieve him of his bewitchment."

The day went on normally from there on out, except for two things. One being that Andrew Ketterley slipped Lucy Pevensie a note saying he wanted to see her in private (she would have gladly refused except the post script on the note mentioned it was to do with 'the dragon', and she still felt Eustace's unfortunate transformation largely on her own conscience). The second was simply that, as they had planned, Anne and Marjorie charted out Edmund's usual route.

Marjorie was so pleased to be 'doing something for Edmund's good' at long last instead of merely sitting about and watching him 'suffer', that it never occurred to her to wonder at Anne's questions the whole time they worked. She kept asking her if she was certain no one else passed that way at the same time as the count, and if she knew without doubt that he didn't have another route he used by turn.

To which Marjorie simply said, shrugging, "Yes, I'm sure. I told you that already."

And, trusting Anne as she did, she never bothered to wonder why, although they made their plans completely in that one afternoon, they had to wait until the following night to speak with him instead of simply going that night. She simply figured Anne knew what she was about, whereas she herself knew nothing about witches and their ways, and was thankful to have a friend who, while not tangled in black magic herself, knew enough about it to keep safe because of a relative's occupation.

Jill Pole was not in the room with them; Caspian had spoken to Lilliandil for her and the headmaster's daughter had consented to allow the girl, since she too could not abide, or condone the recent actions of, Jill's roommates, to stay with her.

Because of that, Marjorie was alone, fast asleep, in the room late that night when Anne rose from her bed, walked to the closet, pulled a hooded gray cloak over her shoulders, and left, studying the chart they had mapped out one last time to make sure of exactly where Edmund would be. Marjorie's following of the count, at first so irksome, since it meant her own chances of catching him alone were becoming practically nil, had turned out for the best after all.

Secretly, Anne Featherstone had been the leader of the Order Of the Dryads all along; it was her that Lucy had seen that night Gumpas and Pug tried to sell her into slavery, and she was the same hooded figure that haunted Edmund's subconscious in his most recent dream. She knew by this point that Lucy was not High King Peter (her uncle had seen Edmund draw Rhindon out of its scabbard, too, you'll recall), but that worked just as well. If Lucy was Susan, she was the perfect instrument to use for breaking Peter's will to rule-even to live-if all else should fail. Just then, however, she had plans for a much more brutal and direct approach. Within the folds of her cloak, she concealed a sharp dagger, the tip of the blade of which was poisoned.

Lucy waited in her room for Edmund to come (she wanted to tell him that Andrew Ketterley wished to meet her and beg him to come with her, not wanting to be alone with the magician again; not because she was frightened of _him_ so much as that she was afraid of the magician's dabbling and ineptness in themselves), but he didn't show.

She suddenly felt unwell and sat down on the bed. Something was wrong. It wasn't simply that Edmund was late. Their entanglement was working on her now; she could feel his discomfort.

"Edmund?" Lucy said aloud, as if she was desperate for him to answer her, despite the fact that he was not there, her voice almost echoing in the stillness of the round-walled room.

In the corridors not far from Lucy's room, but not close enough either to Drinian's domain or Mrs. Macready's for anyone to see them, somewhere in between the both, the very place Marjorie had thought she and Anne had plans in for the following night, Edmund stood, his path blocked by the leader of the 'dryads'-a young woman in a hooded gray cloak.

This time, in spite of the hood, because of the way the light was falling through the slatted windows high above them, the count saw her face.

"I should have known you had something to do with this, Anne," said Edmund, speaking through his gritted teeth.

Back in her room, still sitting on the bed, suddenly shaking in an almost violent manner, Lucy exclaimed, "Let him pass! Leave him alone!" She had no idea who she was yelling at, only that Edmund was in some trouble.

Her whole body felt tense and weak. She wanted to stand up and start running down the corridors, searching for him, even it meant being taken up for a mad woman (it was a step up from 'witch' at least, if nothing else), but there was a buzzing in her ears and the room seemed to tilt up and down like the world was a giant teeter-totter.

Then there was a pain in her stomach like somebody had taken a knife and thrust it into her belly.

"Edmund!" Clutching her abdomen, Lucy scrambled up, fighting against her spell of extreme dizziness, and ran out of the room, right through the curtain and into the corridor.

Mrs. Macready called out, "Princess, where do you think you're going at this hour? Come back!"

But Lucy wouldn't stop. It was a wonder she could run so fast, as her limp was still existent and pretty overt at that, yet she managed, heart-pounding, to get to where her husband was.

It was a pretty clear night, still a single cloud blocked the light momentarily and Lucy almost stepped on Edmund before she heard a moan and looked down. The cloud moved, and Lucy truly understood a bit of the horror Edmund must have suffered through when he'd found her with Maugrim and the bloody ankle.

The Count of the Western March was sprawled out on the tiled floor, utterly helpless, his eyes half-closed, his mouth agape and gasping uselessly, the hilt of a dagger sticking out from his bleeding stomach. Ironically, the dagger had been pushed into the very same place his scar had been.

Letting out a shriek of pain and fear, Lucy threw herself down, hard, on her knees at his side, and then thrust herself across the upper part of his body, clinging to him and weeping.

Lucy, she thought in-between her shaking sobs, pull yourself together and call for help!

She lifted her head up and called, at first too hoarsely and no one could hear, but by the second or third time loud enough almost to wake the whole school, "Help! Someone please help! Edmund's been hurt!"

The Macready was the first to hear her, and for once the woman's stern face softened with pity and recoiled with horror when she saw what had happened.

"Mrs. Macready!" cried Lucy. "Go find Headmaster Coriakin; please! I can't go. I can't leave him." Her eyes flickered down to Edmund, who hadn't even seemed to notice she was with him now, so out of it he could just barely made a proper groaning sound.

"Right away, Your Highness." The housekeeper turned on her heels and ran off at once.

"Thank you," she croaked, tears falling from her eyes and sliding down her cheeks into her open mouth as she spoke. Turning back to Edmund, Lucy sobbed, "Please hold on. You're going to be all right, Ed, you've got to be!"

A faint, painful-sounding grunt came from him, and Lucy noticed that his fingers were starting to feel in a slow yet frantic manner around his stomach area. He was trying to pull the dagger out; it was deep in there and if simply yanking the blade out had been advisable Lucy would have already done so, but all Edmund could understand in his current state was that something was making his stomach uncomfortable and he wanted it to stop.

"Edmund, don't." Lucy tried to grab his hands and pull them away form the dagger, but she only managed to get hold of one. The other grabbed onto the blade (making contact below the hilt) causing blood to start dripping from his now-cut fingers as well as spurting from his stomach.

Breathing heavily, fighting against the urge to hyperventilate, Lucy let go of the hand she held, stood up, and stumbled over to his other side, pulling that hand away from the blade. She tore off a piece of her nightshift and used it to bandage the sliced-up fingers.

Just as the princess was finishing wrapping the nightshift-bandage around her husband's hand, Coriakin, Digory Kirke, Rhince, Caspian, Ivy, Trumpkin, and Lilliandil arrived. Mrs. Macready, with them, as close to disheveled-looking as she could ever possibly be, came rushing down the corridor.

Trumpkin held an oil lantern which he lowered next to Edmund so they could see him better. Lucy swallowed hard; in such lighting she could see his wound even more clearly, and it was perfectly ghastly.

"Dear Aslan," murmured Professor Kirke, crouching down beside the count's head.

Ivy knelt behind his head and gently lifted it up into her lap.

"How has this happened?" whispered Coriakin, most of the blood gone from his face, his expression bleak with the knowledge that they had-once again-been powerless to prevent an attack against High King Peter, not to mention an innocent student.

"I don't know," Lucy told him, shuddering. "I felt that he was in pain…and I ran…and he was here, like this."

"You know, he was right," said Caspian sadly, shaking his head. "For a society created to protect High King Peter, we really haven't been of much use." He did not worry about bringing the society up in front of Mrs. Macready, who did not understand-and had no desire to understand-such things and so would not repeat or think about anything they said regarding the Rhindon Investigation Society.

"We have to remove the dagger," said Rhince. "But it's in there pretty deep. This will be difficult."

"There's something wrong with his eyes," said Lucy, glancing from Edmund to Professor Kirke. "I noticed the second I found him. He's lost a lot of blood, probably, but would that by itself make him that unconscious of his surrounding so quickly? He could not have been here for long before I came."

"Ivy," said Caspian, nodding at Rhince, "keep Edmund's head still. Lilliandil, hold his shoulders. Trumpkin, get the bandages ready."

Rhince bent down and pulled the dagger out of Edmund's stomach in a careful, precise manner that Lucy would not have been able to manage, much as she would have wanted to and tried her best.

And at once Trumpkin's hands held the bandages out to Caspian and Rhince.

Professor Kirke took the dagger from Rhince and brought it to his nose to smell it. "Poison; that is what has made him so despondent, Lucy."

"Who would poison him?" Lucy cried.

"There is another member of the Order of the Dryads among us, still in this school, even though we've gotten rid of Pug and Gumpas," Coriakin announced. "I can feel it in my bones now. No one else would have reason to work against us, assisting the darkness."

"Let me see that dagger." Caspian took the dagger from Professor Kirke and smelled it for himself. "It's not a poison to kill him," he told them, knowing such things from his various studies (you don't get to be valedictorian without knowing a lot of things). "It is made from a hallucination-causing herb, I can tell by the smell; it's strong and very unpleasant, but not sharp. And added to his nightmares it should make him very weak in the mind while losing blood would obviously…" His voice trailed off.

"This is only a weak attempt," Professor Kirke noted, his eyes widening. "If it works, their job is done. He's dead. If not, well they've frightened him, weakened him, and they are one step closer to using their biggest weapon against him, making sure it will be the final blow when they do."

"But what _is_ their biggest weapon?" Lucy asked as Rhince and Caspian lifted Edmund up so that they could carry him back to Lucy's room and put him in bed.

"You, Lucy," Professor Kirke reminded her. "Nothing more and nothing less. I would think you would know how important Susan is to Peter from that composition you had to write, if nothing else."

When Edmund had been placed in bed, he seemed to be doing worse. Delirious, seeing terrifying faces and green mist, and growling wolves and leering witches, and fire and blood, behind his eyelids, he had little will to push through. He only wanted it all to stop; everything hurt and he was sick to death of pain and fear. If only it would all go away. If only he could let go, release his cramped fingers holding on the bar of life.

His eyes were going, by turn, from half-closed to all closed; and he happened to see Lucy at his side, not in his nightmares and delusions but in reality, holding his hand and begging him to be strong while Rhince changed his bandages because the first had been soaked through already. Edmund wanted to fight for her, but he felt too weak. There was no white light, no angelic voice calling, just a calm sense of 'there's nothing more to be done, nothing more that _can_ be done' and a shocking readiness of the body and mind to shut down.

At least he could see his wife one last time before he died. If he couldn't make it, he could say goodbye to her. His lips trembled and his clouded, drugged, glassy eyes, were peering out at her as best they could from under his eyelashes.

Professor Kirke noticed this, understood what was happening, and hastily whispered something urgent to Coriakin who nodded grimly. It would be emotionally painful, however it might just keep Edmund alive if they went through with what the history professor was suggesting. If taking Susan away from Peter could harm him, maybe it could also help him, under the right circumstances; for the high king, as long as he was able and it was at all possible, would do anything to get his queen back.

Professor Kirke ran over and grabbed Lucy by the arms and Coriakin pried her hand out of Edmund's so that Digory could drag her off.

Where was he taking her? Edmund's not quite right at the moment mind raced, absolutely aghast. The professor-though he wasn't even sure it _was_ the professor-couldn't do that, he couldn't!

"Lucy!" he gasped out with a strength he hadn't known he had left in him.

Hearing her name as Professor Kirke was pulling her passed the curtains, unable to get free and rush back to Edmund's beside like she wanted, she shouted, "Edmund!"

He heard her call his name and the green mist in his mind lessened a bit. "Bring her back," Edmund mumbled, not even certain who it was he was speaking to (it was actually Rhince).

"We will," Coriakin told him. "But not if you give up fighting to stay alive. Keep pushing through, let us help you, and we'll bring her back into the room. Give up and you will never see her again."

In his messed-up visions it was not Coriakin who said this, but Maugrim, green mist clinging to his mangled ashen-gray fur. The wolves had taken Lucy away and wouldn't bring her back. The count knew he had to fight them. She wasn't safe if he didn't. They would hurt her; he could not leave her to that. And the witch-hunters were there and…and Aslan had not come…he had not come…and Anne Featherstone was gloating…and the mist was multiplying again.

Edmund took deeper, longer breaths, forced at first, but soon enough it came more naturally. Ivy pressed the rim of a flagon to his lips and poured something hot into his mouth and down his throat which made him feel warm and sleepy and made the green mist softer in hue and more distant. Somehow it made Maugrim go away, too.

The darkness looming over him was not death now, it was just deep sleep-the kind that heals and restores.

Then everyone was gone and the green mist had stopped plaguing him altogether. Edmund found himself returned to his senses, hours later, the shadows of the room changed, the lanterns and fire in the fireplace put out, and the door-curtain being swept aside.

What had happened was that Edmund had fought and pulled through so that the members of the Rhindon Investigation Society currently in the room with him no longer thought him in danger of dying and left him to rest, allowing Lucy (who had been locked in the headmaster's office to ensure she would not return to Edmund's side before they were ready for her to) to go back to her room.

"I'm here, Edmund!" Lucy ran to him, nearly tripping over her own two feet in so doing.

"Good," breathed Edmund, his voice understandably strained but also deeply relieved. "I don't think I'll have any more nightmares just now. Would you mind terribly if I went to sleep for a bit? I'm a little tired."

She took his hand in hers and kissed the back of it, trying not to start crying again. "Get some sleep."


	26. One Night A Fortnight

A warm beam of late morning sunlight coming in from the window fell upon Edmund's closed eyelids as someone apparently had just drawn the curtains to let it in.

His head felt kind of heavy, his bandaged stomach still hurt him a great deal, and one of his hands-which he had evidently cut up somehow-stung quite a bit under its own bandage; but aside from that the count felt no further physical complaints.

He had slept pretty well, mostly, once the Rhindon Investigation Society had left him and let Lucy return. Her reassuring, "Get some sleep" had settled on his weary soul more gently than a soothing lullaby, his wife's words resting on his exhausted eyelids like little sandbags. Largely, Edmund had been untroubled by nightmares, except for just one, very briefly, towards the end of the night, he assumed; and he was now slowly waking up.

In his dream Lucy had been sitting, as she was in reality, at his beside, holding his hand, when suddenly the witch-hunters in their brown doublets and velvet robes had appeared and pulled her away like the Rhindon Investigation Society had done earlier, only much more roughly. It was especially horrible because Edmund found he had been unable to stop them; he couldn't make his body move or even make his fingers tighten around his wife's hand as they yanked it out of his own. It had been as if he were paralyzed or no longer in control of his body at all. At certain moments it had almost seemed as if he was merely a pair of invisible floating eyes, watching it all happen, seeing his useless self lying asleep, beginning to twitch fitfully but incapable of doing anything more drastic. Lucy was crying and begging them not to take her, but the witch-hunters paid no heed to that.

"I'm no witch!" Lucy had screamed as one of them grabbed her wrists and tied them together with strong ropes even a grown man in his prime had little hope of breaking free from. "You're making a horrid mistake!"

Then blackness had engulfed Edmund all over again. Now he was delighted that the night was over. Surely everything would be all right; he'd tell Lucy and the Rhindon Investigation Society about Anne and necessary measures would be taken. Hopefully Headmaster Coriakin would expel her so she couldn't hurt them anymore. Or, better yet, she could go to prison for shoving a dagger into his stomach, where, as long as she was kept under guard, she probably couldn't hurt _anyone_.

There was a girlish gasp, the rustling of the skirt of a dress, the sound of a bottom plopping down into a chair at his bedside, and a hand squeezing his own.

Edmund's eyes were open all the way now, but he had rolled onto his side facing the opposite direction, not the one the chair was pulled up next to. Naturally, though, it had to be Lucy who was with him, eagerly waiting for him to wake, so he squeezed back tenderly.

"It's all right, Edmund, you're safe. Nobody can hurt you now."

Something wasn't right. That voice sounded nothing like his beloved Lucy's. But who else would be with him holding his hand, trying to reassure him like that? He ruled out Lilliandil immediately, since the voice sounded even _less_ like hers than it did Lucy's. For a spilt-second he wondered if it was not Ivy or perhaps Rhince's little daughter, who he had met once, in passing, Gael or something was her name, he thought. However, neither of those seemed right, either. Maybe it was her mother Elaine, since Edmund had heard her voice so infrequently that he wasn't likely to recognize it when he did.

Nothing else for it, Edmund rolled over again, ignoring the pains the hurried motion sent shooting from the pit of his stomach to his lower chest. It wasn't Lucy, and it wasn't a member (or relative of a member) of the Rhindon Investigation Society. The girl sitting with him was none other than Marjorie Preston.

Scowling, he forcefully let go of her hand, shaking off her grip rather vehemently. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"I wanted to be sure you were all right," said Marjorie, blinking at him.

"I don't want your pity," said Edmund crossly, in no mood to deal with the hysterical girl who had once been his wife's friend. "Where's Lucy?"

"Edmund," said Marjorie slowly, as if she was trying to tell him something but wasn't sure how, "you have to listen to me, all right?" She tried to take his hand again, but he stubbornly wouldn't let her.

"About what? Where's Lucy?" he repeated. "I want to see her." _Not you_ , he added in his mind.

"She's not coming back," she told him.

"Not coming back?" Edmund echoed incredulously. "What do you mean?"

"You," faltered Marjorie, "…you don't seem happy."

"No," he sneered sarcastically; "I'm _thrilled_ to have been stabbed in the stomach, jolly nearly being murdered for what it's worth, and then wake up to find you here jawing out all this rot!"

"Listen," she tried again, folding her hands in her lap and making her expression very serious, "you don't fully understand what happened, so I've got to tell you."

" _I_ don't fully understand what happened?" grumped the count, impatiently. Marjorie was _hardly_ one to talk about misunderstanding a matter, all things considered.

"I know this is hard to hear, but Lucy isn't what she pretended to be. She's a witch, Edmund, and she had you under a spell that made you think you were in love with her. And she must have thought you were going to break free of it or something, so she…" Marjorie's voice trailed off and she gestured down at Edmund's stomach wound. "But it's all been taken care of. And I'm _so_ glad you've come to again. I thought you'd never wake up! I was so worried and-"

"Bother your worries," snapped Edmund, his head reeling, glowering at her as he spoke; "what do you mean 'it's all been taken care of'?"

"Why, I exactly what I said. Lucy's been taken care of," she said, with a sickening level of what she herself clearly believed to be pure innocence in her voice. "The witch-hunters took her away."

Edmund practically choked on his own spit and started coughing uncontrollably.

"Do you need some water?" Marjorie stammered, taking in the pained, stricken expression now etched on the count's face.

When he could speak again, he blurted, "The witch-hunters _took_ her?"

Marjorie nodded earnestly.

"When?" he demanded, breathing heavily.

"Oh, days ago."

"What? That's impossible!" Edmund shook his head at her. "She was with me last night!"

"She wasn't," Marjorie told him gently, trying to be kindly but really only making him angrier still with her soft tone.

"Of course she was. After I got stabbed last night…"

"You think it was last night that she stabbed you?" gasped Marjorie, surprised. "Edmund, you've been asleep for nearly a whole fortnight."

"A fortnight?" he repeated. Suddenly he remembered what had happened after King Frank had rescued him; he'd slept nearly a fortnight-in the carriage-that time, too.

But if it had really been so long, then that meant his perception of the night was incorrect. It hadn't been mostly dreamless, it had been _all_ dreamless. What he had imagined was a dream about Lucy being taken had really occurred, and while he couldn't help her, there was nothing the matter with his ears, he must have heard everything. So sometime in the fortnight the witch-hunters had kidnapped Lucy, and his body had registered it as a bad dream before slinking back into oblivion, just as it had registered almost two weeks' time as a single night!

"No!" shouted Edmund. Then he grimaced at the pain shouting caused and sunk back into the mattress, trying to regain both his strength and his self control, both of which he felt in serious danger of losing at the moment.

"All is well," Marjorie tried to comfort him, half smiling. "Your wound is already healing, and will continue to heal. And Lucy cannot hurt you anymore. You're safe."

"How," said Edmund slowly, swallowing hard and clenching his jaw, "did the witch-hunters get in here?"

"I…I let them in," Marjorie confessed.

"You…" Edmund's eyes shone bright with furious, passionate hatred; "let…them…in?"

"Y-yes," she said, shakily, not understanding his fury.

"What have you done, you stupid girl!"

"I've saved you," she protested, tears springing up into her eyes. "Lucy took things too far, she tried to kill you with that dagger. It's lucky Anne's uncle is-" She stopped talking and let out a small cry, closing her eyes tightly, for one of Edmund's hands had been pulled back, as if he intended to hit her.

When he did not make contact with her, Marjorie cracked an eye open and looked at him.

"You better thank Aslan every day of your life from here on out that you were born female. If you were a boy, Marjorie Preston, I would have throttled you." Panting, his chest rising up and down rapidly and his stomach throbbing, Edmund lowered his hand.

"Please, Edmund, I-"

"Shut up." He sat up again. "No, on second thought, don't; tell me where they took her."

"To prison," said Marjorie simply.

"She is alive," Edmund made certain, thinking, much as it would go against his better judgment, that he might break Marjorie's neck right then and there if she dared tell him that Lucy had been executed. Not, however, that he truly thought she had; his sense of entanglement with his wife told him otherwise, regardless of anything this foolish young lady with her silly school girl crush might say.

Marjorie looked stunned that he would even have to ask. "Of course she is. They all are."

"They?" Edmund furrowed his brow.

"Oh, that's right, you don't know," she said apologetically, still clinging vainly to the hope that the count would come to his senses at any given moment and realize that she had rescued him from a witch. "They took the headmaster, his daughter, Ivy the maid, Caspian, and Mr. Ketterley away to prison, too."

"On what charges?" His nose wrinkled from shocked disgust. What harm had any of those people (aside, obviously, from Andrew Ketterley) ever done? And what would he himself do to keep safe long enough to rescue Lucy with those crucial members of the Rhindon Investigation Society behind bars?

"Well, it turns out," prattled Marjorie excitably, "that Mr. Ketterley is a magician."

"No way!" Edmund gasped sarcastically.

Marjorie didn't pick up on his sarcasm this time for some reason and nodded. "It's true. Turns out, the magic page the witch had was from a book in his possession. She was his apprentice-Lucy, I mean."

"That's just it, Lucy _wasn't_! And what about the others?"

"There's a charge that Ivy was working as a witch, possibly under Andrew Ketterley as well. She was only pretending to be a maid."

Edmund felt sicker than ever at hearing this. Anne had done her research, though how she figured all this out was beyond his comprehension. The true villain had seamlessly blended lies with the truth to make her story more plausible. Andrew was really a magician, and the magic page and ring Marjorie had stolen from Lucy's room were in fact his, few would doubt now, that she used them.

"And they say the headmaster knew all along," Marjorie continued, "about magic being done under his roof; and that Lilliandil was in on it as well."

"What of Caspian?"

"He would not let them take Lilliandil without a fight, he was enchanted by her."

Since when it a crime to defend the woman you loved? Why would they haul Caspian off to prison for that?

"He killed one of the witch-hunters; he's under a charge of murder."

"By the Lion!" muttered Edmund, wondering how he could have slept through all this.

Anne had taken her revenge against everyone who had crossed her, as well as striking a blow to the next high king. Coriakin had refused to punish Lucy for shoving her and had scolded Anne when she balked about it; several of the boys in school had said within her ear-shot, Edmund knew, that Lilliandil was more beautiful than Anne Featherstone was; Caspian, the other third-year valedictorian, had been her rival for a long time, in spite of temporary truces; and Ivy had been a founder of the Rhindon Investigation Society pitted against the Order of the Dryads. As for Andrew, he was just a scapegoat, someone to use to further her point; she'd never liked him anyway.

"How long ago were they taken?" He needed to know.

"You'd been asleep for little more than a day or so when I let them in."

"And who is in charge of the school now that Headmaster Coriakin's gone?"

Marjorie brightened. "Anne Featherstone's uncle the witch-hunter, why, he's volunteered to run the school till someone else can take over."

"How long is Lucy to remain in prison?" It was hard to ask all these questions calmly, but there was nothing else to be done without knowing the facts. Edmund knew what happened to convicted witches; he needed to know how much time he had before it came to that point. Marjorie might be too thick-headed to register, or bother herself about, what would really happen to Lucy, but he wasn't.

"Oh, I don't know," she said, still wishing that Edmund come out of his frustrated mood and thank her and be happy already. "The trial is still going on. They're going to deal with Lucy's sentence before they focus on the others."

"I bet they are," growled Edmund under his breath.

Despite the emotional and physical pain flowing brutally through his body, the count was still taking things rather well, the bleakness of the situation taken into account, until he noticed that someone-presumably Marjorie or else one of the servants, perhaps-had lit a fire to keep him warm in this room that was apparently no longer Lucy's, although the air was not actually chill in the least.

At the same moment as his fear of fire because of being accused of witchcraft himself in his past combined with the memory of Lucy's face on the day they met back when he was no more than nine years old, and he heard, clear as day, in his head, her sweet, "Hallo there," trying to welcome him to Cair Paravel.

Lucy's wedding garland of scarlet poppies was still hanging over the mantelpiece, the little flowers dried out more than they were crumpled or withered, and at that exact moment, the wreath snapped, fell from its place, and landed in the full-blown fire, vanishing in the flames like moth wings or delicate tracing paper in less time than it took to blink.

That broke him; tears he could no longer hold back flooded his eyes and ran down his cheeks. Why did they have to be part of this legend? If they weren't, Lucy might be safe from harm. He couldn't bear the thought of her being burned or hung, it was too much. He loved her too much to stand that. The mere thought of her being on trial, and her husband nowhere to be found, unable to protect or defend her, was killing him as well. Lucy needed him, but he'd been trapped here, at a school now taken over by a self-righteous psychopath, laid out unconscious for days on end.

Marjorie didn't like to see him cry. Mistaking the cause of his tears, she tried to comfort him, reaching out gingerly to put a hand on his shoulder.

Edmund's reaction was borderline savage. He shoved her hand away so quickly and roughly that he almost knocked her down unwittingly by doing so. "Don't touch me!"

"She can't hurt you any longer," Marjorie said, regaining her balance and wringing her hands nervously.

Wiping at his eyes with the back of his bandaged hand, Edmund thrust back the bedcovers and started to stand up, ignoring how weak his legs felt.

"Are you sure you should be getting up just now?" asked Marjorie, noticing that he had to grip one of the bedposts because he hadn't stood up in such a long time, clearly very dizzy if nothing else.

"Marjorie, you are going to do something for me," Edmund ordered in a kingly, no nonsense tone, inhaling deeply.

"Yes, of course." She was only too happy to help, still blissfully unaware of the hideous crime she had assisted Anne Featherstone in committing. "Anything. What do you need?"

"You are going to take me to the prison Lucy and the others are in," he told her flatly.

"Whatever for?"

"Because I want to see my wife, and I want to see her _now_." The look on his face hardened considerably, though that barely seemed possible.

"Wife? No, you haven't gotten it, she isn't really…"

"Marjorie!" Edmund took a shaky step closer to her; even hunched down from pain, the count was a great deal taller than her and she suddenly felt very tiny in his towering shadow. He lifted his hands up, not in an attempt to threaten her, but rather to simply make sure she got a good, long look at his wedding ring. "Get it through your head, all right? Lucy is my wife. I was never, ever even _remotely_ interested in you." If the circumstances had been different he would have let her down a lot easier, but the time for such formalities and kindnesses was long over.

"But…but…but she had you under a _spell_ …and she stabbed you in the stomach and nearly _killed_ you…" Her words fumbled and she stammered uncontrollably.

"Lucy never did any of that!" Edmund reached up and rubbed his aching temples, wondering how anyone could be this much of a moron. "I was never under any spell. I married her because I'm in love with her. _Anne_ was the one who tried to kill me."

"No." Marjorie shook her head. "Anne would never do a terrible thing like that."

"Yes, she would." Not seeing any other way to get her to pay close attention to him, in hopes of making her see the truth, Edmund grabbed Marjorie's shoulders and forced her to look him directly in the eyes. Surely she would see no murky mark of magic in them, only unwavering determination. "Anne is the enemy we've been fighting all along." He paused, still staring her down, then added, "Well, one of them anyway. It's complicated."

"I…you're…you're not…lying…" There was something about him that made her think he wasn't making this up, impossible as all this was to believe. "But…that can't be…Anne is my friend."

For the first time Edmund felt truly sorry for Marjorie, now that he was confronted with her realization of her so-called friend's betrayal. She'd thought Lucy had betrayed her, but it was Anne she ought to have been wary of.

"But Anne can't be…I mean, it had to have been Lucy! It just had to. She had that magic book page, that ring, and that knife that had the stone blade instead of steel."

"Marjorie," the Count of the Western March confessed, "the stone knife was mine."

"Yours?" She had not imagined such a concept. How could Edmund have owned a magical emblem?

"It's a long story, but that knife wasn't Lucy's."

"But the ring…and the page…"

"The page was from Andrew's book, as you know; Lucy never used it." He left out that she had considered it, not thinking Marjorie deserved to know about that part of the story, even though he now pitied her a little. "And the magic ring was a forced gift; Lucy would have never accepted it."

"No, no, no." Marjorie fell back into denial. "You are mistaken, you must be. She's a witch."

"Look, I'm going to tell you something." He sighed heavily. "I lived with a witch for five years, I know an enchantress when I see one."

"You're telling the truth, aren't you?"

"Yes, now you have to take me to Lucy."

Marjorie started weeping and pulled herself out of his grasp. She sank down onto the floor, dragging her knees to her chest, sobbing harder.

Lucy had been a good friend to her, the only person (other than Jill Pole) who had treated her with kindness when she had first arrived at this school. She had stupidly convinced herself that Lucy was a horrible person who would do unspeakable things to the Count of the Western Marsh simply out of spite, but it came to her at last that she had been wrong. The real truth of the matter was simply that they had both liked the same boy. They had both fancied Edmund, and he'd chosen Lucy. Too hurt to believe he would have done so if she had had a fair chance, Marjorie had decided to listen to Anne, to alienate herself from Lucy, and from Jill as well.

All this time she had thought she was helping Edmund, because she 'loved' him. Only, she hadn't been; not really. She had wrecked his chance at happiness along with Lucy's. She had made his wife's life miserable, given him precious little privacy, helped someone who meant him harm catch him alone, and she'd let the witch-hunters in through the side door so they could take the love of his life away. It was exactly the same as if she'd cut him open, ripped his heart out, and kicked it across the corridor.

Worse still was knowing she had been so selfish. Yes, Marjorie had wanted him to be free of his curse and be happy. But she also knew that she wanted him to be happy with _her_. All along she'd been so sure that as soon as he realized Lucy was an evil witch, Edmund would come running to her with open arms, declaring his undying love for her. How ignorant she had been; how self-centered and dim-witted!

And what she had done to Lucy…oh, she could barely stand to think of it! She wasn't angry, she now she knew, because Lucy was supposedly an enchantress, she had only truly been upset because the princess had Edmund's affections and she was jealous of that. Maybe Lucy shouldn't have offered to speak to the count on her friend's behalf when she herself was in love with him, but what else could she have said? Marjorie had been her friend, and she hadn't wanted to let her down. Yes, Marjorie had been shocked and beyond hurt when she walked in on them in bed together. But had it been _only_ because she felt betrayed? Or was it more because Lucy looked so happy-even beautiful-lying there, barely dressed, in the count's arms? She herself had wanted to be that loved, that radiant, that contented.

Then came along Anne Featherstone, so glamorous, so admirable, being so 'understanding', offering an explanation that was easier to swallow than rejection was. Thinking only of her own comfort and reassurance, Marjorie had taken hold of that. Arguments that had made such sense and spurred her on in believing the worst of Lucy Pevensie now seemed like ones a baby would have seen through and known at once were bogus.

"Oh," wept Marjorie as if her heart would break, "what have I done? What have I done?"

"Stop that noise," said Edmund, speaking sternly, but not cruelly so. "If you're really so repentant, you can show it by taking me to her."

"I want to," bawled Marjorie, "but I can't."

"Of course you can!"

"I can't!" she wailed.

"Why not?" he demanded, shouting and throwing his hands up into the air in frustration so quickly that he almost fell down, far, far beyond the end of his patience. The count steadied himself on one of the bedposts and took a long, broken, raspy breath.

"Don't you see?" said Marjorie pathetically. "Anne won't let me, and her uncle is in charge of the school. I shall be expelled, and only if I'm lucky!"

"If I don't deliver Lucy from being falsely tried as a witch in time," Edmund growled, "she could be _burned_. Don't you understand that?"

Marjorie began howling again, big, fat tears running down her face. "No one ever said anything about k-killing her…I didn't know…I would never have agreed, or helped, if I…oh, what a terrible thing I've done. I can never be forgiven, never!"

"I'm lessening in my resolve not to hit you," Edmund warned her. "Where is she? Where did they take my wife?"

"To prison, I told you."

" _Which_ prison?" he snapped, exasperated. They would get no where at all with her carrying on like this. "Is it near? Far?"

"N-near."

Good, that was a start. "How near?"

"It's still in the Lantern Waste, sort of near the village where Headmaster Coriakin liked to get supplies from."

The village he and Lucy were married in, he thought gloomily. "You will take me there."

"How can I? I've got no horse, and I don't know how we can get out of this building without being caught to begin with, you see. Also, I don't have a good sense of direction; I'll get us lost, I know I will."

"I would sooner die hopelessly lost, trying to save Lucy, than die here knowing where I'm at."

"Anne's uncle may put out a warning for no one to harbor us, we could be alone in the forest, trapped with wild animals and goodness knows what else…"

"And no chance of dinner either," Edmund had to admit, reason telling him they would soon be hungry and thirsty, greatly diminished as the kidnapping of his wife had made his appetite.

"Exactly." Marjorie sighed melodramatically.

"You owe it to Lucy," he reminded her.

"I know, but I've told you…"

"You've told me why you are scared," Edmund pointed out. "And where the prison is, roughly. Precious little else. I imagine it will be hard to find; I don't remember seeing any prisons around when I went to the village."

"Well," Marjorie said, "it isn't a proper prison; it's a sort of little 'apprehension house', for high-born persons accused of crimes or rebels of noble blood; at least, that's what I heard Anne's uncle say, I may be remembering wrong. They still call it a prison, though, I think."

"That gives us something to go on." Edmund's mouth twisted thoughtfully. "Do you know what the building looks like?"

"Must have a big, flat roof," she thought aloud, "because Jill Pole said she saw them-Lucy and the rest-sitting up there, behind a parapet, once."

"Jill Pole got out of the school?" Edmund felt his ears prick up.

"Anne's uncle sent her to buy supplies, in the company of some of the other witch-hunters; so she would try anything foolish, he said. She didn't want to go, but some of the supplies were medicines for you, that changed her mind."

"Shh!" said Edmund suddenly, putting a finger to his lips. "I hear something."

"I don't hear anything."

"Well, I do." It was Rhindon. Edmund had ended up hiding it under the floorboards after all, and it was calling out to him now. No one else could hear it, only the high king knew when his sword was singing out to him. Rhindon was a force of light and goodness, it would not lead him astray; it would guide and protect him. "Marjorie, watch the door."

As Lucy's former friend kept her eyes on the curtain (for that was what he meant, as they hadn't a door there any longer), Edmund dung out the floorboards that concealed Rhindon and pulled the sword-in its scabbard-out.

Drawing it, he murmured, "Aslan, I can't do this alone, I need you to somehow make this sword know what it's doing. I need the strength of the bearers who came before me. I've got to save my queen. You know me, you know that's the truth."

Sword out in front of him, he and Marjorie exited the door and went down the corridor. The idea was to get out, to the stables, and steal Coriakin's old horse again. Then they would ride, ride, ride, hard as they could, towards the village and the apprehension house, and make the rest of their plans from here.

Edmund half-expected initially to be stopped by a whole slew of persons, including, but not limited to, Anne Featherstone and her uncle. However, that turned out not to be the case, and he felt rather put-out both at the ease with which they moved along (although upon reflection he figured maybe it was Rhindon leading him and some power keeping the villains away and was grateful for such intervention) and with how hard Marjorie had made the notion of getting out seem to be.

They met only two persons. One was a witch-hunter he did not know by name or title or relations or anything else of consequence, and, remarkably, as soon as the future high king pointed Rhindon at him, he stood as still as a statue, letting him, and Marjorie, her jaw agape, pass. The other was Jill Pole, who ran out to Edmund, crying, in a low voice, that she tried not to let them take Lucy but there was nothing she could have done to stop them.

"I know," said Edmund kindly, shaking her hand. "I know you tried your best."

"Let me come with you," Jill begged.

"If you come, we'll need to steal another horse," Edmund said quickly. "All of us together won't fit on just the one."

"Then let's do that," Jill said eagerly. "I've got a bow and arrows Caspian let me borrow for target practice not so very many weeks ago, I can take them with us. Marjorie and I," –here she paused and looked very hard at her former friend, as if unsure whether or not to trust her. "Well, if she's really on our side, she can ride with me, and you can have the other horse to yourself."

"I'm so sorry, Jill, I know I've done a terrible thing," Marjorie blurted out. "But I am on your side now, honest I am!"

"I don't forgive you," said Jill sternly, "and I won't until the people you hurt with your selfishness are safe again, but I do believe you."

When they reached the stables at last, Jill and Marjorie took a splendid white horse named Snowflake, who had belonged to Lilliandil before she was taken, and Edmund took Coriakin's dapple-gray steed, for the comfort of familiarity if nothing else. All the same, he tried not to let his mind linger too long on memories of himself and Lucy riding back to the school on their wedding night on this very horse; such thoughts made his chest tighten so that he could scarcely breathe.

It was hard ridding (Snowflake started foaming at the mouth from exhaustion at one point), but they finally made it to the apprehension house: a long, tallish, sand-coloured building.

From the side with less people, where Edmund, Jill, and Marjorie had to approach from after leaving the horses behind, tied to an iron loop elsewhere, there was a high wall. Thankfully there were two windows with bars and no glass, and stacks of empty crates plied up under them.

Edmund lifted himself up onto the crates, grimacing in pain, and gripped the window-bars with his hands, peering through. It was grim place, that much was rather overt. The day was clear, however, and there were persons sitting out on the roof, having a half-hour or so of deliverance from the dreary insides of confinement.

With a start, Edmund recognized Lucy among them; she was wearing his clothes still, with a white woolen muffler around her neck that he had never seen before.

The Countess of the Western March's wrists were in black iron shackles which were chained to the those of other prisoners on the roof with her, who consisted of Coriakin, Ivy, Andrew Ketterley (who appeared sullen and temperamental), and a wild-looking, wide-eyed man Edmund didn't know.

Lucy moaned and lowered her head onto one of her shackled wrists despairingly.

Edmund wanted to call out to her but was afraid someone else might hear him. Dejectedly, he got down from the crates, his hurt stomach cramping up a bit, his already strong determination renewed. He had seen her now, with his own eyes, he knew exactly where she was; Lucy Pevensie would be freed. And, together, they would defeat the odds, be with each other again, and bring Narnia back into a Golden Age.

And quite frankly, at this point, Edmund could care less how many tushes he had to beat the tobacco-juice out of in order to do so. This had all gone way too far.


	27. Meanwhile

And now you might want to know how things were for Lucy during the fortnight Edmund was asleep.

Conditions in the apprehension house did not consist of the stereotypical images of a dank, dark dungeon full of nasty bugs and cobwebs and mice. Well, there _were_ some freaky-looking cockroaches that gave even Caspian the creeps, but Ivy smashed them with a boot; and there was one non-talking mouse that liked to come in among them when the guards weren't in the room, but they didn't much mind him because he was actually pretty polite for an untamed rodent, not jumping up on them or anything, and Lucy had made friends with him (she saved a bit of cheese from suppertime for him) and would have been very upset if he was harmed. Mostly, things were reasonably standard, though the brown bed-clothes smelled as if they could stand a bit more washing than the guards had them sent out for by way of routine.

Caspian, Lilliandil, Ivy, Lucy, Coriakin, Andrew Ketterley, and a very unstable, borderline mad, sort of man, who was called-by the guards, usually, when they weren't calling him something rude to make fun of him-Lord Rhoop (for some reason, Caspian always forgot the lordship's name and often stammered uncomfortably trying to recall it whenever he had to address him) all had to share one chamber. They had a row of creaky beds of hard brass with padded but painfully thin mattresses made up with starched brown cotton sheets and a row of three-legged stools and a row of chamber pots; one for each of them.

If there were any other prisoners in the apprehension house, they never saw them or their living quarters. The only rooms they really got a good look at were the one they all slept in together and the interrogation rooms. Occasionally they might be called into an unfamiliar office, for whatever reason. These were all bare-walled, dull offices without pictures or books or anything worth looking at and hardly classified even as a half-step up from the interrogation rooms where the curtains were always drawn and someone was always asking long-winded, confusing questions.

Lucy did once manage to spy a single low window with no somber-coloured curtains blocking it in a corridor on her way to one of the offices, and through it saw a dry, untended little yard with a few sparingly-planted trees. One of those trees had a little (possibly rotted) plank-wood swing strung from it with frayed, badly weathered rope; no one had the foggiest idea why it was there or who would have used it and when. Her request to be allowed, once a day, perhaps sometime after breakfast, to go out into that yard for fresh air and sunlight was refused. It broke Lucy's already miserable heart when she was told the answer was no and she was so put-out that she didn't even save any cheese for her little mouse friend that day.

The only time they were permitted out of doors was an odd half-hour or so they were allowed to sit on the prison roof, in chains and shackles. Only then could they feel the wind in their hair and the sun on their faces. Sometimes they could see people, if they screwed up their eyes and strained a bit; these people were going about their lives never knowing how lucky they were to be free.

Because Lucy was currently on trial, she was taken out of the apprehension house several times, via a smelly windowless black carriage, when the others weren't and more or less dragged down to a village courthouse where a merciless judge was told lots of lies about her and no one gave her a chance to speak. One time Andrew Ketterley had been brought along as a witness. He was not very helpful. All the magician did was cry and say it wasn't his fault, that he had 'never wanted to practice magic in the first place', and then blurted some gibberish about his godmother. Unfortunately, under pressure, he did lie and say that Princess Lucy was his apprentice, which didn't bode well for her.

When she was not on trial and not being questioned, she just sat as close to the others as possible and tried to make herself as small and insignificant as possible. If she could have, she would have turned herself invisible.

But there was no chance of her being invisible to the guards. Most of them, if they fancied any of their prisoners, were smitten with Lilliandil, but one of them seemed more interested in Lucy. This guard took to smiling at her when he came on duty and, innocently enough, wanting to make friends, she returned the gesture. Caspian and Coriakin weren't so certain his attention was a positive thing, or that he meant it in an honourable way, only there never came an appropriate moment when they felt they could tell Lucy of their concerns without being overheard.

Sadly, she was to learn for herself that it was not her friendship that the guard wanted. On a morning when most of the guards were off duty, Lilliandil, Coriakin, and Ivy were in an interrogation room, and Lord Rhoop and Andrew Ketterley were on the roof, Lucy appeared to be alone except for Caspian, who the guard mistakenly thought was asleep.

"So you're the one this is all about," he said, grinning, taking a step closer to her. "The one they're calling a witch."

"I am not a witch," she told him flatly, not liking the look on his face.

"You were a princess before, weren't you?"

"I was," said Lucy, blinking, "now I am the Countess of the Western March."

"How do you figure that?"

"My husband is the count, I'm the countess."

"You're nothing," laughed the guard. "Not anymore. They say the trial won't turn out in your favor, that you're to be a convicted witch. No one outside of these walls wants a witch, I'm sure your husband will find a new countess."

Lucy frowned. Why was this guard, who had seemed the most friendly out of the lot up till now, saying such mean things to her?

"At least we can entertain each other before it's over for you," he said, raising his eyebrows.

"What do you mean?" Lucy took a step backwards.

He took another step forward and, without any warning, pinned her back against the wall. "You aren't quite as pretty as I'd expect a royal princess to be, but for a witch, you're quite comely, don't think I haven't noticed."

"Leave me alone." She turned her head and tried to get away from him, but he wouldn't let her.

"But I've been waiting for this chance," said the guard, smiling wickedly. "I want you."

"You will not touch me, Sir," said Lucy, baring her teeth. She would not suffer this outrage; she felt truly just then as if she were indeed Queen Susan, only this time around Susan would win. In this version of the story, the queen would live on; she would do the impossible: survive unruined and be with her high king again.

Caspian was starting to rise from his bed, about to tackle the guard from behind if he actually did try to touch Lucy.

The guard sighed in an exaggerated manner and tried to put his arms around Lucy and pull her to him by force, only to get a swift knee to his privates for his efforts. Angrily, he picked up an enormous tome of law, the only object currently within arm's reach, and struck Lucy across the forehead with it. "Witch! You vile, cursed witch!"

The blow caused Lucy to tumble to the ground. The skin just above her brow stung; she put her hand to it, felt something sticky, and realized it was blood. The cut wasn't deep, but it was still a nasty little gash.

Caspian, upon seeing Lucy hit, lunged at the guard and punched him dead in the face, twice; once in the nose and once on the mouth.

It was then that several of the other guards returned to find their compatriot complaining bitterly of a broken nose and split lip, saying that Caspian-a man already under charge of murder, no less-had attacked him for no reason.

One of the more burly-looking guards with a wholly unmovable dark face that rather frightened Lucy if she looked at it for too long, simply because it was so hard and distant, so cold and impossible to reach, ordered the guards with him to remove Caspian's Telmarine-style tunic and lift his Narnian under-shift up over his head.

He's going to do something terrible, Lucy's brain screamed; but she, even then, could not guess what.

Then the burly guard pulled out a whip and began to flog Caspian's back mercilessly.

The first time the whip made contact with his skin and he let out a cry of intense, unyielding pain, Lucy began to scream, utterly horrified. The guards told her to shut up, that it wasn't her that was getting the flogging.

"No, please! Please don't! You don't know-" cried Lucy, rushing forward, trying vainly-and perhaps a touch foolishly, as well-to get between the man with the whip and her friend's bare, already bleeding and welting up back. "He's done nothing wrong. He was only protecting me! Stop it! Stop it, I say!"

"You're not a princess or a countess here, you ugly witch," snapped the guard who had 'wanted' her. The look on his face suggested, quite directly, that this was 'all her fault'.

But it wasn't, and she knew it. Teary-eyed, she looked at Caspian's back again; now it was practically ripped to shreds.

At first Caspian, being very brave and a proud member of the Rhindon Investigation Society, feeling strongly that all the flogging in the world would not change that he had done the right thing in protecting both his friend and the next Queen Susan, was, in spite of his involuntary shouting out and flinching, taking it all in stride; but as the lashings were coming down on him unendingly, he soon began to weep openly.

Unable to help him, Lucy eventually pulled herself into a corner made up of a small space behind one of the beds, holding her knees to her chest and burying her face in them. She couldn't stand to keep looking, but there was no way to block out the sound of the whip cracking or of Caspian's sobs.

Finally they stopped flogging him and, thrusting his under-shift back down so that it smarted against his ripped-to-ribbons back, shoved him face first (for which he was thankful because if they'd put him there on his back, he thought the pain would have killed him right then and there) onto one of the beds and promptly left the room, stationing themselves outside of it.

When Ivy, Lilliandil, Lord Rhoop, Andrew Ketterley, and Coriakin returned, they found Lucy, attempting to put cool strips of washing-cloth (of which there was not, unfortunately, very many) on Caspian's back, trying to tend to his wounds best she could; certainly the guards were not going to give her, at least not yet, any actual medicine for the Telmarine's injuries.

Lord Rhoop started screaming so loudly that Ivy had to slap him across the face to make him stop. Lilliandil just stood, speechless, with her mouth agape, not knowing what to do with herself, seeing the man she cared so deeply for with a swollen, bloodied back. Andrew Ketterley went off on some irrelevant, whinny tangent so badly that the others (including Lord Rhoop) stole one of the precious washing-cloths before Lucy could wet it in her wooden basin, using it to gag him. Even the guards were relieved that the 'bloody blabbing magician' had shut up and didn't say anything when they saw the gag in Andrew's mouth.

The following morning, and the one after that, Caspian's back was so painfully sore that he could not rise from his bed and join the others on the roof. Lilliandil stayed with him; she made as pleasant conversation as she could manage under the circumstances and put ointment (which the guards had finally bothered to give them) on his welts and cuts.

Alas, no good deed goes unpunished, and it happened that, as the star's daughter was busy looking after Caspian, a long poisonous green snake came slithering out of the mouse-hole where Lucy's mouse lived (it must have killed that poor mouse) and into the room unobserved.

The snake bit Lilliandil on the hand and she let out a wild scream as poison was shot into her bloodstream.

"Help! By the Lion, someone come quickly!" shouted Caspian, trying to get up but only managing to lift his head. "Lilli's in trouble! She's been bitten by a serpent!"

While the guards were-at least as a whole-not nice people, they weren't about to let one of their charges actually die of poisoning on them and so sent for a physician right away and brought out emergency supplies of antivenin. The end result was that Lilliandil's life was spared, but she was very weak and sickly and could not rise from her own bed. Soon it was Caspian (though he had to lumber about like an old man and was often hunched over in order to do so) who was taking care of _her_.

Coriakin hated to see his daughter in such a condition. Her fair skin no longer glittered but was merely pale instead of its usual starlight-white and even went sallow or gray a time or two when she was feeling her worst. As for her long beautiful hair, a great deal of it fell out as a side-effect from some of the medicines she had to take and the rest had to be tied back into a single braided knot so it wouldn't get in the way while she rested.

Lucy could hardly believe, looking at Coriakin's broken expressions, Lilliandil's faded complexion and lost hair, Ivy's withdrawn face and constantly anxiously clasped hands, and Caspian's unsteady gait as he hobbled around, that it had been a little less than two weeks ago that she had been safely in school, in her own little room, sharing her bed with Edmund. It seemed as though they had been trapped in this place for months and months, as if a time when one was not on edge, huddled in a corner or else being dragged off somewhere, existed only in an era in a distant past.

Of course neither Lilliandil nor Caspian could come up on the roof, so it was just herself, Ivy, Coriakin, Andrew Ketterley, and Lord Rhoop who sat in their shackles, feeling the wind and the sun on their tired bodies.

It was a fine day, but the air was cool enough that Coriakin had loaned Lucy a muffler, saying the last thing they needed was another one of them on their sickbed.

As she sat, staring out at the world, wondering if Edmund-or even her parents-knew where she was right then, tears choked her. Despairingly, she lowered her head onto one of her shackled wrists.

If Lucy could have only known that Edmund was watching her at that very moment, through the window-bars on the wall, her sprits would have lifted considerably; but she did not see him and he did not dare attempt to make her look his way, lest he get the attention of a loud-mouthed prisoner, or one of the guards, along with his wife's.

That night, wrapped in the brown cotton sheets, trying to get as comfortable as she could on what was, without a doubt and no way of getting around it, still a hopelessly uncomfortable bed, Lucy bit her lower lip and tried not to cry anymore. There seemed to be no point to shedding tears any longer since, as of lately, it wasn't making her feel even the slightest bit relieved.

When she fell asleep, she found herself in strange surroundings, even for a dream. She seemed to be in a damp, stone-walled, very dark, circularly-shaped hole of a place with no windows. It was too deep for her to climb out of, but Lucy tried anyway, only to slide right back down, landing on her bottom, which was wet now. There was a faint drip-drip sound from the walls, and quite frankly she wasn't sure if she was underwater or sitting in water, or else only half-emerged in it; nor did she care. She was far too miserable to bother about that.

Suddenly Lucy sensed that there was someone else with her. At the same moment it occurred to her, also, that this place was (had to be, for there was no other explanation) a well. It did not, however, come into her head to wonder _why_ she was at the bottom of a well. That hardly mattered; the pits of despair were the pits of despair whichever physical form you chose to emphasize such dreary reality in. Although, it _was_ rather a shame wells were always so very cold and wet.

But she felt a little lighter in heart, all the same, knowing she was not alone.

And then the person spoke. "Lucy? Is that you?"

"Oh, _Edmund_!" cried Lucy brokenly, recognizing her husband's voice. "I'm so cold."

"Come here," he whispered gently, wading through the water till he reached her and pulling his arms around her.

"I've missed you so much. And I've been so afraid."

"You're safe with me, Lu," said Edmund, continuing to hold her.

After a few moments of quiet embracing, the count kissed the countess on the mouth, moaning softly with pleasure, caressing her neck and cheek.

Lucy felt so happy that she wanted to burst; she'd missed his tender way with her, his kisses and his hands; most of all, she had missed his company in general, his steadying, consoling presence and somewhat grave loving demeanor; now, though she might be trapped at the bottom of a well, she had all of these back; she had Edmund back.

A Lion-like roar echoed from above and a million points of light that Lucy could just now glimpse (stars in the heavens, probably) faded out of sight as daylight shone over the well. And they weren't even _in_ the well anymore, they were sitting in the grass _beside_ it.

The silver locket Edmund had kept for all those years was for some reason at the edge of the well and almost fell in, but the count caught the chain in time to impede that.

Grinning, he held it out to his wife.

Lucy's fingers took the chain and played with it. While she fidgeted with the locket, she was taking in her surroundings. There were several apple trees about this place and the smell and the feel of the grass was familiar; it all seemed to be calling out, "Look, look! What do I remind you of?"

"Why," she said aloud, "the apple orchard back home at Cair Paravel! Oh, Ed, we're home!"

Life can be cruel and spiteful, and right then it _was_ horribly spiteful to Lucy; for it was at that moment that her eyes shot open. Tears spilled out, running off of her nose and onto the hard, lumpy pillow under her chin.

She wasn't in Cair Paravel's apple orchard at all. No, she was still in the well and it was still nighttime. Worse, there was no Edmund here to comfort her. Here, Lucy was nothing; not a princess, not a countess, not a student, not a wife, not a daughter, nothing.

No, she thought darkly, remembering the guard's disgusting words, I am something here: here, I'm a witch, a criminal and a prisoner.

"Aslan, if you ever loved us at all," said Lucy, under her breath, thinking not only of herself and Edmund, but also of the former Peter and Susan, and Aravis (who was Jill in this generation), and of Eustace Clarence Scrubb (where-ever that poor dragon may have been), and the whole Rhindon Investigation Society, "send us help now."

That morning she sat on the roof again (this time only with Lord Rhoop and Ivy since Coriakin said he was feeling poorly and wanted to stay inside with his daughter and Andrew was just being plain sulky and difficult) and she saw a snowy-white albatross fly by.

The bird circled round twice before landing on the chain that linked Ivy's and Lucy's shackles together. Tied to its foot was a note which Lucy was able to (with some difficulty) retrieve and read before the guards noticed and she had to crumple it up and kick it aside so they wouldn't.

It said: ' _Courage, Lu_ ' and had been written in a certain left-hand handwriting she would have known anywhere.


	28. Certainty

Guilty. The word rattled around in Lucy's head madly as she was led down the village courthouse steps by her guards, the chains connecting the shackles on her wrists jingling in a mocking-almost musical-manner. The court's verdict was announced just five minutes prior, and she had held her breath, waiting for them to realize that she was innocent, for somewhere in the very back of her mind she had secretly nursed the belief that they would, only to hear a word that meant exactly the opposite: _Guilty_.

Lucy spent the ride in the black carriage in a daze. Surely this was a dream and she would wake up and find that she was in bed on the morning _before_ the court was supposed to reach their verdict. But she had already pinched her own arm until it changed hues and nothing had melted away. Her one condolence was the memory of Edmund's note. Her husband loved her, knew where she was, and was coming; all he asked was that she have courage. More than once today she'd wished she could have kept the note and held it in her hands to reassure her, but as that was impossible, the memory and knowledge in itself had to be enough.

None of the guards said anything at all to her, but the one on who's account Caspian had been flogged arched his brow at her briefly, just once, when no one was looking, as if to state and rub in, "I told you so."

Not that Lucy cared, really. She found it didn't hurt so much. As soon as she had stepped out of the carriage, being taken back into the apprehension house, she'd felt a sudden, very unexpected twine of relief. Somehow, whenever she had imagined what it would be like to be fully condemned as a witch, not merely accused, she had envisioned it as being far worse than this. Now that it had actually happened, though, it struck her quite plainly that 'guilty' was only a word. Could a mere _word_ really hurt her? Especially when it had someone as strong willed as Edmund (all the more so, Aslan) to fight against? If a word was not a wholly impersonal thing, Lucy might have almost pitied it. Could she, after all that dread, really bring back her initial horror and fear it? Or was she simply to go on feeling this calm inside, even standing on the scaffold if things got that far? Would they try to hang her or burn her? Probably burn; but that didn't matter either.

So when she entered amongst the others again, and Caspian and Lilliandil sat up (with some difficulty) in their beds, Ivy sat up straighter on her stool and widened her eyes, and Coriakin rubbed his and looked anxious, Lucy was a little surprised to find that they were so worried.

"Well?" said Caspian, a little hoarsely.

Lucy shook her head.

"They haven't declared you guilty," said Coriakin disbelievingly; "they couldn't."

"They have," said Lucy quietly, her voice nearly a mumble, in spite of her calm and lack of fear finding herself unable to meet the star's eyes.

"No!" shouted Ivy, jumping up and kicking her stool behind her in a passionate rage. "This can't happen again! I will not let it! Dear Aslan, no!"

"Ivy," said Lucy, taking a step towards her.

"Susan," wept Ivy, her hands over her face. "I've failed you. I've failed you all over again. A whole society and for…for _nothing_! I wish I had died at the end of the Golden Age, honestly I do. I cannot bear for you to die again, Susan."

"My name's Lucy." Lucy reached out and took Ivy's hands off of her face. "Look at me, Ivy. Do you see the same person you knew in the old Narnian court? Or do you see someone else who just corresponds to her this time around?"

"Does it matter?" Ivy's tone became bitter. "Susan…Lucy…it's all one and the same, if I can't save anyone. When you've lived as long as I have there are only three women in the world: the queen, the witch, and everybody else."

"But that's not fair, I don't care how old you are. And you did save someone; you saved Edmund."

"Peter," said Ivy, shaking her head. What did that matter when Peter couldn't go on without Susan, and Susan was to be killed on a false charge all over again?

"No," said Lucy, "just someone who corresponds to his role. I've met Peter. And I know my husband inside and out. The man you saved was not Peter Pevensie; you saved _Edmund_. It will be different this time, it's got to be."

"How can you be so sure?" asked Lilliandil in a pale-sounding voice, her weakly half-glowing skin seeming to flicker on and off like a dying bluish-white ember.

Lucy smiled to herself. "The albatross." She added, "You just have to have faith about these things, help will come."

"What help?" grunted Caspian, thinking about his sore back. He had been glad to take a flogging for Lucy's sake, painful though it was, but he couldn't help thinking that no one-Aslan included-had come and helped him.

She dared not bring up Edmund in regards to helping them, lest the guards should over-hear. "Aslan will help us."

"He didn't stop us from being taken," muttered Ivy. "Or Susan from dying."

"He'll help us," Lucy insisted, playing with her own fingers and wringing her hands. "He will. I'll be all right, I promise; we're all going to be fine."

Andrew Ketterley started crying.

"What _is_ the matter with you, Mr. Ketterley?" Lucy demanded, a little annoyed. Not even Ivy's outburst was quite that over the top in the drama department. All those silly, fat tears; a great big magician like him, carrying on so! Well, irritated as she was, the countess couldn't say she was exactly surprised.

"If they kill you," wept Mr. Ketterley, "they're sure to kill me too. My life's work shall be over before I can archive anything great. I never got to turn a dragon back into a boy, and I never got to send anyone into another world! Everyone carries on about you, you, you, Lucy. You're all so mixed up and selfish. No one cares a fig for, or bothers about, _me_."

"You testified _against_ Lucy, you moron," croaked Lilliandil. If he'd so badly wanted Lucy's name cleared, even to save his own skin, why the devil had he lied and said she was his apprentice? Ugh, _men_!

"Shut up, you twinkle-light!"

"Don't tell her to shut up!" snapped Caspian, glaring at Andrew. "You will apologize at once."

"Will not, I still have my dignity to consider," sobbed the magician; then he muttered something about how he would give anything for a flask of brandy right about then.

"Consider it all you like, it's not coming back." Caspian rolled his eyes.

"No one understands me!" wailed Andrew, throwing up his hands into the air. "My great mind, my life's work and deep studies, _wasted_!"

"Hey, keep it down in there!" yelled one of the guards stationed outside of the doorway.

"Really, you must stop it," Caspian reprimanded Andrew. "Not even Lord…er…um, what's his name…"

"Rhoop," Coriakin mouthed to him.

Lord Rhoop yawned; and Caspian went on. "Right, Rhoop. Not even Lord Rhoop carries on so when he takes on those fits of his."

"You should really stop it, Andrew," sighed Coriakin, trying to remain calm, feeling rather proud of Lucy for being so still and serene through this. "We face a far greater catastrophe than the loss of one dishonest magician." The star who was once Headmaster sighed to himself, thinking about the high king. If anything happened to Lucy, it would kill Edmund, all the more so that it would be under false pretences similar to the one the count had had to overcome in his own early life (Ivy had told Coriakin about that recently). Caspian had been right: some protective society they were all turning out to be!

The following day was very tense, at first all the prisoners had been very snappish with each other, and understandably so; now, as the time had come for Lucy to be taken away and executed by being burned at a stake on a great scaffold in the village, though the tension had not lessened, no one had anything really to say.

"Do let's shake hands," Lucy said before the guards came in, noticing that Lilliandil was crying and Caspian was shaking like a leaf; Coriakin and Ivy seemed calmer, but there was deep anguish in their eyes all the same. "Don't be sad, it's all right."

Caspian extended his hand to her, then pulled her in for a full hug. "Dear Aslan, it cannot be all right! How can you be so calm, Lucy?"

"Caspian," she reminded him softly, "don't strain yourself." He was holding onto very tightly. "Think of your back."

"I would be willing to take another flogging now," he said, tearfully, "if only they would promise to spare you."

Lucy shook her head. "They wouldn't, you know that. Besides, I won't die, not today; I'm sure of it."

"But what if you do?" asked Lord Rhoop, looking almost lucid for one of the precious few times since they'd met him.

"Then Aslan will remember Edmund." Lucy shrugged her shoulders and resisted the faint urge to bite onto her lower lip, thinking of Edmund and how dreadfully she missed him. "I shouldn't mind finding out if Susan really is in Aslan's Country with Peter after all. Besides, I just know I won't. Haven't any of you ever been sure of something even though you can't say why?"

Caspian thought of how when he had first met Lilliandil he had known he was going to fall in love with her even before he got to know her. He never told anyone about the whole 'love at first sight' thing since he thought everyone would just attribute that to how the star's beautiful daughter looked, when he himself knew, especially now, that he would have loved his dear 'Lilli' no less if she had lost part of her hair and become desperately sick. But somehow knowing one was in love didn't seem at all akin to unrealistically believing that one wouldn't die when executed. He wanted to believe in Lucy's unwavering conviction that everything would be fine in the end, as he knew everyone else (except for maybe Andrew) currently in the room did, but it was just very hard.

Lilliandil croaked a broken-sounding goodbye and buried her pale face in the bed-clothes, shielding her eyes so she wouldn't see the actual moment Lucy was taken, knowing the guards had no intentions of bringing her back; she couldn't bear to look.

Ivy wouldn't shake hands, but she met Lucy's eyes for what she thought would be the last time. Coriakin did the same, shaking his head and muttering, "I tried, please forgive me, I did try," and whether he was speaking to himself, to Lucy, or to the others wasn't clear.

It was early afternoon, Lucy realized, as she was pulled outside, ignoring the rather vulgar jokes the guards were making regarding her, blinking in the sunlight. It was early afternoon and from all she'd heard she wasn't supposed to be burned until sunset or early evening; in the dreary apprehension house there had been no way of telling the time. Was it possible they had decided to kill her early? She forced herself not to let the panic she had avoided so entirely take hold of her now. For a split-second perhaps Lucy had wondered if the change in schedule would mess up whatever plans Edmund might have had for rescuing her, but she quickly made up her mind not to worry about that.

As it turned out, there had been no change in schedule at all. Lucy was still set to meet her death at or after sunset, no sooner. They were simply making her stand on the scaffold on a little turned-over wooden crate of some sort beside the tall rough-looking stake she was to be tied to later; so everyone could see her, she supposed, guessing they meant to make her feel shame. But as she wasn't guilty it would just be a long, tedious afternoon thrust upon her for no reason at all.

If there was anything she was sorry about, it was that things had gotten so out of hand; Lucy was sorry Caspian had gotten hurt, Lilliandil sick, Edmund stabbed and nearly murdered, and Ivy and Coriakin embarrassed for their society-which she personally thought was marvelous and wished suddenly she had remembered to tell them that before leaving the apprehension house. She even felt a little-a _very_ little-sorry that she had 'betrayed' Marjorie by being with Edmund. Yes, Marjorie had been horrid about it, and she didn't deserve pity or forgiveness, but Lucy still wished there was some way they both could have been spared their conflict and remained friends, if things had only played out differently. Namely, if Anne had not twisted everything. Yet Lucy absolutely refused to feel sorry for a crime that was not hers. What bad magic had she really ever done aside from one incident of spying for which she felt she had paid dearly enough for in emotional suffering, and making it snow in a classroom that one time?

While she stood uncomfortably, the ropes that bound her feet feeling scratchy (as well as too tight around her bad ankle) and the metal of her wrist-shackles hot, and heavier even than usual, someone (probably a witch-hunter who's name she didn't know, or maybe it was a worker from the courthouse) slipped over her head a sort of wooden sign that said _WITCH_ , all in big, crude capitol letters. So the back of her neck now itched too, thanks to the slender piece of rope that held the sign in place.

By turn, Lucy took to alternating her mind; one hour she watched anyone that passed by her and tried to get a good look at them, wondering if they felt sorry or indifferent toward her or else believed-like the court-that she was guilty, and the next she lived entirely in her mind, remembering things, before turning back to reality and the current moment, reassuming her people-watching.

She remembered what the sand between her toes felt like when she walked along the shore by the Eastern Sea. More than once she was recalling playing with Edmund, or making faces at her castle tutors, or sitting in her father's lap in the throne room as a very, very small child. A lump formed in her throat.

Most of the people that went this way didn't really look at her much. One woman with her small children clucked her tongue disapprovingly. A little girl tugged on her big brother's hand and said, "Is she a real witch? Is she truly?" But the brother merely shrugged and muttered that he supposed such and then tried to change the subject. There was a faun and a talking rabbit who tried to bring her a glass of water, telling the guards that their charge looked like she was going to pass out from thirst.

Although she hadn't realized it before they said something, Lucy's throat was indeed dry as dust and her tongue felt all prickly; she would have given anything for one little mouthful of cold water.

"No reason to give her water," said a guard gruffly. "No need at all. She's going to be burned soon enough. Besides, you don't know that she's really even thirsty; witches can make themselves look pitiful when they want. Pay her no mind."

"All the same," said the rabbit meekly, "I don't like the stories of the Calormene's God Tash, but if even _he_ looked so thirsty, I'd vote for giving him just a little cupful at least."

"What's Tash got to do with anything?" barked the guard, raising his hand to shoo the rabbit away. "Begone with you. What does a rabbit know about executions or thirsty prisoners? Humph!"

"I think, Sir," said the faun levelly despite the fact that he was offended for the sake of the rabbit, who was his friend, "that he meant by his speech that no matter what a person's done wrong, they're probably entitled to a bit of water on a warm day. It's just the same as denying them air. I say, poor witch, whatever you think about it, if you aren't going to at least let her drink."

"You know nothing about witches," the guard said; but seeing that they were quite determined, motioned for them to leave the glass of water on the scaffold before moving on.

As soon as the rabbit and faun had gone by and were out of sight, the guard picked up the glass of water, took a long sip, and swallowed. "Ah!" he said, making a smug face at Lucy.

Lucy frowned and wished him a stomach ache.

He took another sip, then held out the glass as if to offer it to her. It was within three inches of her parched lips before he meanly yanked it away and dumped it out on the ground.

"Oops," he said, grinning.

Blinking back involuntary tears (oh, how badly she'd wanted that water!) Lucy returned to her innermost thoughts. She found herself remembering the morning after her wedding night, when Edmund had seen the beauty spell page and told her that he hadn't meant when he said about her not being pretty that day back at Cair.

She imagined herself, instead of simply throwing the page as she had, standing up and burning it in the fireplace, _then_ kissing her husband. If only that had been what really happened. Then Marjorie wouldn't have found…oh, wait, she would have found the knife and ring still. Yet it would have been one less thing, regardless. There was simply too much time for thinking today; Lucy was beginning to get a headache from the sun and longed for shade, or even rain.

A young man came by the scaffold. He was wearing a cloak, in spite of the warm weather, and his face was hidden. Lucy almost nodded politely then looked away, bored, but then thought she noticed something familiar about his mannerisms. It wasn't anything in particular, just sort of how he stood and how he moved…it was hard to explain, but she could have sworn she knew him. Also, despite the fact that he said nothing aloud, Lucy felt keenly aware somehow that he'd just said her name _in his head_.

Was it possible? Could this be who she hoped it was? Lucy wanted to smile at him, nearly convinced it was, but dared not to even look directly at this slightly hunched-over cloaked figure for too long, lest the guards wonder what was so fascinating to her. She wouldn't let this little bud of hope, about to reach full bloom, be nipped.

Suddenly there was a great clamour and people and creatures and goodness knew what else were screaming. Lucy tried to step down, at least from the crate, though not the scaffold, so that she might strain her neck and get a better look, only the water-stealing guard noticed, glowered at her, and said, "Mind your own business!"

Still, he couldn't prevent her from hearing-or even from seeing, when the cause of the hubbub came quite close.

It was a great, flying orange scaly thing with wide flapping wings and giant claws that could probably tear right through metal if the creature felt like using them for that purpose. Undoubtedly, it was a dragon-albeit a dragon with a shockingly human expression on his face. It was Eustace! And he looked none too happy.

For a moment Lucy thought he was going straight for the guards and was worried that their arrows would hurt him, in spite of his tough skin. Apparently, the guards thought the same thing, however (that he was going for them) and so were shooting their arrows in the wrong way. They were shooting up, and Dragon-Eustace was flying so that he dodged them and went down, under, towards the foundation of the scaffold.

With one hard crash, and a mighty blow with his tail when that alone didn't get the whole job done, the scaffold began to collapse. Because of the shifting weight, the crate Lucy stood on splintered under her and she went tumbling forward (the guards were thrown backwards due to where-and how-they were standing), rolling down the slanted remains of the front of the scaffold, right into the arms of the cloaked young man.

Panting, Lucy looked up so that she could see under the hood. She wanted to fling her arms round his neck, but her shackles made this desire impossible to fulfill. So, instead, she simply sighed and whispered, "I knew you'd come, Ed."


	29. In Which Aslan Turns Up

As could have easily been predicted, simply getting Lucy off of the scaffold was not the end of the matter. The guards didn't stay toppled over in a miserable, angry heap behind the wreckage of the dragon-bombed scaffold for ever-or even for as long as Edmund would have preferred, really, if given a choice.

The count barely had enough time to run into a crowded market road (hoping it would be harder for the guards to keep track of them with the distraction of several other persons about) then duck into a small alleyway where he worked at trying to remove his wife's bonds, knowing that, much as he would prefer she not, all the more so after what she'd just been through, she might have to fight if the guards managed to corner them in spite of their best efforts. The ropes on her feet were easy enough (he simply cut them off with a pocketknife he had on his person), but the shackles, as Edmund had no key for unlocking them, were so impossible that, after struggling to pick the blasted thing open for nearly four minutes, he became frustrated and cursed rather colourfully under his breath.

Lucy pretended not to hear what he was muttering. She focused instead on the sound of his voice in itself for it's own merits; understandably, she was very glad to be hearing it again, no matter what it was saying.

Thankfully, Dragon-Eustace had stationed himself in the way of the guards in order to delay them somewhat; but he couldn't keep at it for long because of the massive weapons they took to flinging at him. Some kinds just grazed off of him and so were no problem, yet there were others which could have potentially ripped through his skin-hardened and plated by his strong scales as it was.

"Bother these chains!" Edmund snapped as his pocketknife broke in the keyhole of Lucy's shackles. "We're going to run out of time!"

"Leave me here," Lucy suggested hurriedly. "Go help the others. I'll figure some way out of them."

"The others?"

"Caspian, Lilliandil, Ivy, Mr. Ketterley, the hea-I mean, Coriakin, and Lord Rhoop."

"Lord _who_?" He furrowed his brows in confusion.

"He's a friend," she explained quickly; "he's with Caspian and the rest. We can't just leave him."

"Of course not," Edmund agreed, though he was nervous about rescuing someone he didn't even know from the apprehension house; it wasn't that he didn't want to save the poor chap, it was simply that so many people were turning out to be on the wrong side these days and it was beginning to make his head spin. "But I can't fathom why you want to save Andrew, really."

"He's just stupid, Edmund, that's all." Lucy shrugged. Andrew was crude, self-centered, and involved in witchcraft, but thinking of him as a dangerous enough person to be executed was a bit heavy-handed for his kind of magician. In comparison to the witch Edmund had killed so very long ago, Andrew Ketterley was just a pitiful bag-of-bones of a cow in the shadow of a great snorting bull with huge horns.

Edmund rolled his eyes.

Lucy had decided not to tell her husband that Andrew Ketterley had testified against her until _after_ he saved him, just in case, but it sort of slipped out in spite of her best efforts.

"Actually," said Edmund, when he had recovered from what Lucy had accidentally just told him, "I'm not going to get 'the others'."

"What? Why not?" Oh, how _could_ he?

"Jill Pole and Marjorie Preston are," he whispered.

"Oh." Lucy felt a sudden rush of shame for doubting him even for that one second. Her beloved count had never given her reason to doubt him before, it was highly unlikely that he would start now of all times. "But, I say, what is Marjorie doing on our side? Marjorie hates me."

"Not anymore. It's a long story. The short version is that she's finally gotten it through her thick head that I never liked her." Edmund glanced over his shoulder, thinking he heard a noise. "What was that?"

It turned out to be only a stray, non-talking cat knocking a dustbin over, nothing worrisome.

"Leave me and go help Eustace, then, he might be hurt if they keep shooting at him," Lucy re-voiced her suggestion.

"I'm not going to leave you tied up like this," he huffed.

"But you should go-"

"And what? Have you found and dragged back to the scaffold and killed? I think not."

Lucy sighed, finding in herself the strangest urge almost to giggle, which she stifled at once. "Ed, there isn't any scaffold there any longer; it's all practically matchwood now."

"Lu, if someone really wants to kill you, no lack of scaffold is going to stand in their way, all right? But I am." He focused back in on her shackles.

"While we're working at this, do you mind if I ask you something?" Lucy wanted to know.

"Anything, fire away," he said, a bit absently.

"How exactly are Marjorie and Jill going to break the others out?"

Edmund bit back a smirk. "Don't worry, they've got a plan."

"What sort of plan?"

At that very moment, Marjorie, looking nervous and fidgety (only half-acting, to tell the truth), was approaching the apprehension house. She looked over her shoulder, at Jill, who stood behind her and nodded reassuringly. It was true that a great deal of the guards had gone to the scaffold with Lucy, but no one would have been mad enough to let them _all_ go, leaving the other prisoners unguarded. And that meant they probably had quite a few to go up against.

Jill had only the one bow and quiver of arrows she had no means of replacing once they were all used up along with some raw target-hitting talent (Marjorie had nothing but a bread-knife she'd somehow pinched along the way, only that didn't matter very much as she was quite useless at hand-to-hand fighting and shooting anyway) to use against all the guards' speed, skill, and weapons if it came to an out-right battle; so she knew she must, as much as possible, use trickery and guile as Edmund had suggested. She only wished their plan was a little more foolproof. It wasn't that it was a particularly bad one, it truly was the best they could have come up with on such short notice, but it wasn't exactly the stuff real war-strategy is made up of, either.

Marjorie stationed herself right at the front gates of the apprehension house while Jill gave her a stern, 'try not to funk this' look and went sideways into a small space between two very poorly cared for bushes.

Thinking of how little chance there was of success and how it was all her fault made Marjorie's chin tremble, and Jill was glad of it since their plan counted largely on her going into hysterics enough to distract the guards.

Tears began to slide down her face and Marjorie began to weep openly and much louder even than she usually did without making it sound too put-on. She waited for the guards to hear and take some notice of her, and when they didn't seem to straight off, she almost gave Jill's hiding position away by sliding her pupils to look over at her.

"It's not working," she mouthed.

"Cry harder," huffed Jill, pouting and looking about her feet for a useful pebble. Finally finding one, she hurled it at the building, hoping it made some noteworthy noise. Oh, if only the place had more windows! She thought crankily. It's a prison, sure, but it doesn't have to be completely void of light or glass.

At last two guards came out and Marjorie was positively bawling.

"What is it, young lady?" one of them demanded, rather gruffly. "Move on, no reason for you to be here."

Marjorie let out a gasp for air and another shriek, taking no heed of them, going right on with her crying.

"Perhaps she's hurt," the slightly kinder of the two guards whispered to the other. "Or else has been frightened out of her wits by something."

"Well, Miss," demanded the other, thinking his compatriot might be onto something, "are you hurt, then?"

"Oh, oh, oh!" she wailed, muttering off something that they couldn't quite make out in-between fresh sobs that shook her whole back.

Yet another guard came out. "What's the problem out here?"

"Don't know, this girl won't stop crying."

"Eh? What's that? Who is she, anyway?"

"We don't know."

"Well, don't stand there stupidly, we've got to get the brat to move on, can't have her hanging round here making all those fitful sounds, now can we? Open the gate and try to see if she'll take some help."

And so they did. "Is someone hurt? Did you need something? Stop that blubbing at once and tell us or we'll hit you with the flat of a sword blade. We're very busy, you know."

"Yes, yes," wailed Marjorie, her hands on her face now. "I can see that." She parted her fingers and peeked through at them.

"Well, what do you want?"

"Um, help, of course," she stammered, sniffling. "It's dreadful."

"What is?"

But she seemed to have no intention of telling them what her complaint was, for she was crying hard in earnest once again and they could no longer understand her.

"Oh, this is ridiculous!" grunted a guard. "We can't understand her, and if she won't be shooed off…I suppose we'll have to send someone with her to see what the problem is for ourselves."

"But there's only five of us left on duty right now to guard the prisoners. And if we go, that leaves only two."

"It's a slow enough day, and my head aches, let's just go with the blasted girl and get her to stop making that awful sound. I've heard cats lovemaking on the apprehension house roof before and even _that_ was a more pleasant sound than the fit this girl's taken on." The guard rubbed his temples while he spoke.

So I'm only up against two, thought Jill, that's not so bad-or, at least, it could be far worse. She gripped her bow tightly and made sure the quiver of arrows was strapped firmly to her back before creeping out and sliding soundlessly through the open gates while the guards were talking and didn't see or hear her go passed them.

She tried to stick to shadowy corners, not wanting the two other guards to catch sight of her if they didn't have to, and hoped Marjorie remembered that after she had led the three guards off far enough she was supposed to lose herself in a crowd as Edmund himself planned to do once he got Lucy off of the scaffold. If the foolish girl forgot, she'd be stuck with three short-tempered guards in tow for goodness knew how long and eventually they would realize she was taking them on a wild goose chase. And despite Marjorie's resent actions, Jill didn't want to see her hurt; besides, they didn't have so many on their side as they would have liked, this was no time to be choosy about personal misgivings and grudges. They didn't even know where Professor Kirke was (he seemed to have vanished shortly after Coriakin was taken, though he himself had not been apprehended).

Finding another pebble, Jill threw it over her shoulder, towards the gate, where it made a _clink_. The two guards didn't go outside to look, but they did crane their necks briefly in that direction, the door now ajar, quickly losing interest. But not so quickly that Jill hadn't been able to creep in.

Suddenly it occurred to her that she ought to, while she was here, if there was time, look for the key to Lucy's shackles; for somehow she doubted Edmund, all his talents put aside for the moment, just to be realistic, would be able to get them off without it. She decided she would ask Caspian where the guards kept he keys when she found him.

When she finally found where he, Lilliandil, Ivy, and Coriakin (and presumably Andrew Ketterley as well) were being kept, she was surprised that the door was unlocked. Likely, the guards figured that as long as all the side-exits were locked and bolted the prisoners, even if they left their chamber without permission, wouldn't be able to get out without their knowing of it. All the more so, it was probably pride; they figured that, after what they'd done to Caspian, the pale, frightened prisoners who's little friend was being burned as a witch that evening weren't going to take any chances.

Sticking her head in the door, Jill heard a voice whisper-cry in extreme surprise, "Why, it's Pole!" –it was Coriakin.

Caspian, who had been lying on his side in bed, sat up and noticed her. "However did you get in here?" he hissed from his place.

Andrew almost yelled out to her in what would have been quite a loud tone of voice, but Ivy put her hand over his mouth. Lord's Rhoop's eyes were wide; he thought he was dreaming and that the girl standing before them with the brave face and the bow and arrows was only a slumbering vision; but it was-and this is what stunned him-a very peculiar vision, for he couldn't imagine why he would be dreaming about a strange young lady entering in place of the guards.

"Quickly," said Jill, putting her finger to her lips. "We've got to get out, and at once. Three of your guards have been distracted, surely we're a match for only the two; but if we can sneak out without a fight, even better."

Caspian rose up and Jill sucked in her breath, shocked by the way he stood, as if he was having some trouble with his back. That wasn't good, she hadn't anticipated any of them being wounded-weak, perhaps, but not wounded. Poor Caspian! And Lilliandil, though her back was perfectly fine, turned out to be in all around bad shape far worse than his! Jill felt thankful that Ivy was a natural fighter. If only they could manage to keep Andrew Ketterley and that strange, unknown person the others seemed to intend to bring out with them, quiet, all might end well.

"Oh, I almost forgot," whispered Jill to Caspian, who was the last to lumber out of the open doorway, "do you know where they keep the keys to the shackle chains here?"

"What does it matter? None of us is chained."

"But Lucy is," she pointed out.

"Lucy!" Caspian's eyes lit up. Did he dare to believe there was hope for her after all? "Is she all right?"

"I believe Edmund's got her by now; Eustace is helping him. But I don't know how he's going to get those beastly chains off of her without a key."

"Don't worry about it," Caspian told her, feeling immensely relieved that Lucy was relatively safe now; "Coriakin can get just about anything open. And if it's so bad that even he can't help, we can hire a locksmith later and keep Lucy hidden until then. We do not have time to look for keys right now, we might get lost or worse."

"All right," Jill agreed, a little dejected but understanding his point regardless.

They traveled as soundlessly as possible through the corridors except for a faint humming kind of sound they couldn't pin-point until Ivy figured it out and shook her fist at Andrew threatening to 'send him into another world with her knuckles' if he didn't stop humming. Coriakin suggested gagging him again, though they didn't actually have any spare cloth on them to do it with, but Mr. Ketterley grudgingly agreed to be quiet.

"Honestly!" said Jill under her breath through everyone still heard. "You would think he _wanted_ to be caught, way he's acting!"

One of the guards had fallen asleep, the other was awake and playing dominos with himself (and cheating) on a small wooden table near the way Jill had come in and hoped to smuggle the others out.

"If we can keep him from waking his companion," whispered Coriakin, "it will be all the better for us. Arrow on the bowstring, Jill Pole. We might be able to frighten him into keeping quiet till we've gotten through."

"Who's there?" The guard put down his domino piece, for he could have sworn he heard something.

"Don't move!" Jill leapt out before him, holding an arrow to the bowstring and looking extremely serious. "And don't wake your friend there. If you do, I'll shoot."

The Guard's trained hand automatically went for a throwing-dagger he had near-by, but Jill, hiding the fact that she was rather nervous marvelously, didn't hesitate, and with a heart-stopping _twang_ her arrow flew and landed right next to his wrist, deeply embedded in the table.

"That was a warning." She quickly fitted another arrow to her bowstring. "The next one probably won't be."

"You're bluffing," he stated darkly.

"You had better hope I am," Jill retorted, scowling sternly, "but, if I were you, I wouldn't want to risk it."

The guard, only a very little bit shaky, began to rise; Jill released her arrow and it pinned his wrist to the wall behind him.

As for the sleeping guard, he stirred restlessly for a moment and let out a low moan, and the guard with his wrist stuck to the wall certainly hoped he would wake and even tried to make a tapping sound with his foot before Jill shot at his ankle; but he never did fully waken. Andrew suggested shooting the sleeping guard through the temples, but the others called him a horrid tyrant and coward and Jill especially, since she was the one doing all the shooting anyway, was very much against this plan.

Then they all went out of the apprehension house, scarcely daring to believe they were getting away. Lord Rhoop stated over and over again that it surely was a dream. But when they came to the scaffold, and there was quite an extraordinary battle going on there, any sense of dreamlike wandering was stifled, even as the former prisoners' eyes adjusted to the bright but rapidly fading (for it was sunset) light.

There was Edmund, his hood flung back, and the guard who had denied Lucy her glass of water going at it sword to sword. The guard was skilled, but so was Edmund, and in comparison to the glory of Rhindon, the guard's hideous sword was as feeble as a toy, which, needless to point out, really would have tipped the chances of winning greatly in the count's favor if only he was not still suffering from his stomach wound and the guard did not have the others helping him. At least Edmund had Dragon-Eustace, who was being a brick, and brilliant as well, in his movements, still not shot down by the guards, which was something of a miracle in itself.

Somehow Rhince and Glozelle had managed to get there and were also helping Edmund, but none of the other members of the Rhindon Investigation Society had been able to make it; many of them were under the careful watch of Anne and her uncle, and that was little better than being under house-arrest at times.

Jill wondered where Lucy was, before remembering that her shackles would have made it hard for her to fight. Of course Lucy would have wanted to fight; she wasn't like Marjorie who was undoubtedly hiding and crying somewhere (Jill decided not to grudge her this since she had done her part, distracting the guards, though it still irked her a bit); but her absence couldn't be helped. So the countess was hidden between two large dustbins in that alleyway Edmund had pulled her into, a blanket over her head, pretending to be a bum.

If it could have been done, Edmund would have just run with her and never-minded about fighting, but the guards had tracked him no sooner than he'd gotten Lucy hid (and there had been Dragon-Eustace to think about, anyway). They knew he had taken her, and demanded he return the witch to be delivered up to justice, and of course he would say nothing. And Lucy had had to bite her lip to keep from crying out and to hold her wrist very, very still to keep the chains from jingling and giving her away.

Edmund went on fighting and Jill joined in, shooting what was left of the precious arrows. When Andrew Ketterley unwittingly came near (he was trying to hide but was lousy at it), Edmund did something that surprised the guards; he left off fighting and put Rhindon, instead, to Andrew's neck.

"Tell them!" he shouted at the magician. "Tell them the truth."

"What t-truth?"

"About Lucy," Edmund snapped, his eyes darkening with anger. "Tell them the truth; tell them she wasn't your apprentice! Tell them!"

"She w-wasn't…" whimpered Andrew Ketterley. "I offered, but she refused."

"Louder," demanded Edmund, pushing the sword in a little deeper; Eustace knocked down a guard that was trying to get at the count with his tail. "Say it so everyone can hear it. Lucy was not- _is_ not-your apprentice. Lucy is not a witch. The testimony you gave is false!"

"Lucy is not a witch!" bawled Mr. Ketterley, loudly and hysterically enough to suit the occasion.

"There you have it," Edmund said, baring his teeth, lowering his sword. "Go away, Andrew, I have no interest in taking your life now."

And Andrew needed no further asking, he ran at once for his life, tripping over his own two feet and falling flat on his face several times doing so.

"This proves nothing," shouted the guard on who's account Caspian's back had been ripped up. "Anybody can withdraw testimony when threatened with a sword to their neck!"

Before anything else could be said, a panting Countess of the Western March arrived, her wrists no longer chained up, in the crowd.

"How," began Edmund; then he saw it: Aslan, the great Lion, standing at Lucy's right side, his mouth open and roaring. It was then that he realized that not only was Lucy freed from her chains but she also wasn't limping as she ran.

For the most part everyone seemed to cower down in the face of the great Lion, even those who had-some secretly-not truly believed in him; at any rate, weapons were being lowered and no one was fighting any longer.

But the guard who had said Edmund's proof of Lucy's innocence was invalid seemed disinclined to stop, despite the fact that he (and several persons present noticed this) would not look Aslan in the eyes exactly. He reached up with a dagger he had on his person, preparing to stab Edmund.

Lucy, noticing this, let out a little gasp, ripped a dwarf-sword with a black and silver hilt out of a sheath attached to the waist of a stocky dwarf standing not far from where she and Aslan were, and flung it at the guard with all her might. It struck the guard in the heart and he toppled over at once, dead although Lucy had not necessarily been aiming to kill, his dagger dropped uselessly on the ground.

"Enough," said Aslan, looking around disapprovingly, his large eyes solemn with disappointment. "This was uncalled for. Lucy Pevensie is no witch. You have called me into Narnia with your badness; I certainly hope the next time I visit it shall be for a better, more noble reason. For now, however, there is much that needs sorting before I depart again. First…" The Lion's eyes flickered over to Eustace. He dragged his huge, golden paw on the ground, scratching it, and the dragon felt as if someone was scratching off his own hard skin. It did sort of hurt, but it was a good kind of pain; like when you pull a thorn from your foot or peel away a scab.

With a flash of golden light, the dragon was a boy again, on his knees, eyes and limbs very weary, by the wreckage of the scaffold.

"Oh, Eustace!" cried Jill as she dropped her bow and arrows and raced excitedly over to his side.


	30. The End

It had been nearly two and a half months since Aslan had arrived, Edmund had rescued Lucy, and Eustace had been turned back into a boy, and things were rapidly improving, to put it mildly.

Anne had been expelled and sent for a year to an institution for wayward girls in Archenland. Aslan had tried to talk to her before it came to that, but she wouldn't listen, even when the other 'dryads' were discovered and taken into custody as well; Anne was actually dragged out of Coriakin's school (for it was his once again now) kicking and screaming and crying that she was meant to destroy the high king and queen. Rumour had it that her father intended to send her to a boarding school in Calormen once she was let out of the institution; and with her high marks, in spite of her demeanor and horridness, Edmund said he thought she might just get in, possibly even do very well for herself.

As for Anne's uncle and the rest of the witch-hunters, they'd all been banished from Narnia for the time span of ten years (apparently Lucy was not the only innocent girl they had falsely accused of witchcraft lately, and Aslan had had enough) and their licenses were taken away.

The stone knife was returned to Edmund, who decided in the end, hard as letting go proved to be, not to keep it; he gave to Aslan, and the great Lion hid it somewhere at the end of the Narnian world. Few sailors ever reached there, but those who did were all told Edmund's story.

Eustace Clarence Scrubb was a very different sort of boy now than he had been before Andrew Ketterley accidentally turned him into a dragon-a much more likable and considerate person on the whole, though he could still act, at times, a little stuck up. He and Jill Pole were firm friends (and some believed even more than simply that) and spent most of their time together these days.

Marjorie was, surprisingly, the new leader of Anne's former friends. Without Anne Featherstone there to lead them, they had been in search of a new person to follow around and Marjorie seemed a prime candidate. It was true she was not very rich and a mite too wishy-washy at that, but she knew good style when she saw it (she had, after all, known every single hat in Anne's closet and every single brass-and-jade pin and gold necklace in her jewelry box by heart) and that was _something_ , at least. Thankfully, Marjorie was too thick and self-conscious to think up mean things to do to anyone without Anne's encouragement (and even if she had been able to think of anything, she'd learned her lesson and thus probably wouldn't have acted on it regardless), so her 'leadership' ended up making most of Anne's old friends rather nicer persons to be around by default.

There was still some tenseness between Marjorie and Lucy, however, that was unavoidable. Though they were back to being friends, it was more of friends in name than it was anything deeper. Lucy knew Marjorie loved her but was still hurt by all the suffering her friend's weakness had caused, and while she was not a particularly jealous wife, it was obvious for a while that Marjorie's crush on Edmund had never entirely gone away although there was nothing to be done about that as the count thought only of his countess. After a long talk with Aslan, Lucy had come to the conclusion that the only decent thing she could do was forgive her old friend, but it seemed as if they would never be terribly close again, the past leaving a permanent mark on them both.

The Rhindon Investigation Society had not dispersed; after all, how could one tell when evil forces would rise again? It was their duty to keep their high king and queen safe, they reasoned, not admitting, even to themselves (except for Caspian, and he wouldn't say so _out loud_ ), that they simply would all miss each other dreadfully if they couldn't keep on meeting together.

Speaking of Caspian, his back was beginning to heal and he had asked Lilliandil, who was also slowly returning to good health, if she would marry him after graduation. For an answer, she didn't say a word, she merely smiled at him. That alone was more than enough; he knew what she meant.

Andrew Ketterley had, shockingly, sworn off magic from then on. The problem was that, magic or no magic, he was still liable to get into trouble (especially involving drink) quite frequently and showed no signs of seeking help or even of remorse. In the end, Headmaster Coriakin had decided to give him the sack. Mr. Ketterley was not as angry about this as you might think, for he had never liked children or teaching, and the headmaster was generous and had given him an excellent unemployment pension out of the kindness of his heart.

Now Lucy sat in her room looking towards the door as it opened (yes, the door had finally been replaced) and Edmund walked in holding a letter in his left hand.

"What's that?" Lucy asked, grinning at him.

"A letter from Father," he told her, his expression gone rather impish.

Knowing him well, she said, "What are you so happy about, Ed?"

"Lucy, shortly after I rescued you-or I should say, Aslan did, since I honestly don't know how long I would have been able to keep fighting those guards, even with Eustace's help, to tell you the truth-well, after that, I guess somehow Frank heard something about my 'helping you in your time of need' and he offered me a generous piece of land, a royal estate attached to the crown and sent me a letter asking if that pleased me."

"That's…great…" said Lucy unsurely, not quite understanding his expression just yet.

"I turned him down," Edmund blurted hurriedly.

"What?" She furrowed her brow. "But why?"

"I bucked up and asked him, flat out, in my returning letter for…something else…" Edmund's cheeks went a little red and he looked away from her briefly.

"What did you ask for?" Lucy wanted to know.

"Your hand in marriage."

"But we're already married," she said, confused.

"Yes, but he doesn't know that," Edmund reminded her. He had thought that it might be an easier way of delivering the news that he was in love with the daughter of the man who'd raised him, a way to cushion the blow so to speak. Of course he figured that King Frank had probably laughed at 'the jest' when he'd gotten the letter, but to Edmund's credit, he had tried to word it all as seriously as possible.

"So that letter you have now…" Lucy slowly realized, her eyes widening.

"Is his reply." Edmund nodded.

Lucy pulled him down beside her, next to the unlit fireplace, and demanded he read it aloud at once, curiosity nearly driving her round the bend with excitement and anxiety.

The count unfolded the letter, cleared his throat, and began. " _Dearest son of the house of Cair, Edmund Pevensie, greetings_." So far so good. He kept reading. " _Thou art an ass_." Edmund grimaced. All right, not so good. The words were sharply written, King Frank meant it.

"The 'dearest son' bit was nice," Lucy tried, forcing a faint smile.

Edmund scowled and cocked his head at her in a slightly irritated fashion. "Oh, shut up."

"Keep reading," she urged, nudging his arm, ignoring his comment for the time being.

" _How stupid doest thou believe me to be_?" Edmund read on, beginning to feel very unsettled. " _I recently learned that thee had wed my daughter without my permission from thy history professor, who came, on a long perilous trek to Cair Paravel in hopes of informing me of Coriakin's school being taken over by witch-hunters and my child taken to an apprehension house. He did not arrive at Cair until after you had already saved her, and I thank thee for that act of bravery, otherwise it should have been too late by the time I had heard anything. I was hoping, in writing thee, thee would tell me straight-out the truth: thou hast disappointed me in this matter_." He stopped reading, turned to Lucy, and said, "Well, that explains where Professor Kirke's been, doesn't it?"

Edmund sighed. If nothing else there was some comfort in the fact that King Frank wasn't addressing him coldly (his occasional switching to the usage of the term 'thee' instead of the more formal 'thou' confirmed this to some extent), like he was a stranger; he was speaking to him more like a caretaker preparing to box his charge's ears. So Frank didn't completely hate him for what he'd done. He only hoped that Helen was of the same mind as her husband.

Finally, he turned back to finish reading the letter. " _Although thou hast put me in a less than desirable situation (there were plans of setting Lucy's future with another suitor, which thy rash actions make me have to go back on now), don't worry thyself too greatly about it; let me deal with the matter, thee shall have bigger problems. When thou returns to Cair for the school holidays, dear son-in-law, thou shall be cleaning chamber-pots as a punishment for lying to thy king. Of course after graduation thee and Lucy will have another more formal wedding; such must be for matters of state. Thy history professor has also informed me of thy future role, and that thou has the legendary sword Rhindon, supposedly. Truth is, though I'm not sure I believe it any of this 'high king returning' nonsense, I could not wish for a better heir than thee; it will be hard, if not nearly impossible, to put thou on the throne, but there is nothing for it except for us to try to do so in light of all that has happened_."

Edmund almost dropped the letter from shock. "Did he just say he wants me to be king after him?"

"I've always said you would be a wonderful king, Ed," said Lucy, a little cheekily; this was the closest she would get to saying "I told you so".

"I'm probably the first king in Narnian history who is going to spend his holidays cleaning chamber-pots, though."

"Yes," said Lucy, shooting him a pretend-pout, trying to tease him a bit. "And you'll miss such an awful lot of state suppers as a result. At these suppers there will be laughter…and tears…" She paused dramatically. "Because," she added, "you see, we'll all be laughing so hard."

"Because I'm cleaning chamber-pots and there will be no better conversational piece," Edmund put in. "I must say, Lu, if those state suppers are half so boring as I recall, cleaning chamber-pots may not be such a bad alternative." He winked at her.

"I think Father's pleased," Lucy decided, taking the letter from Edmund and reading it over once very quickly for herself. "Under all those fancy words and scoldings, I think he's happy for us."

"Perhaps," agreed Edmund, a touch begrudgingly.

Lucy elbowed him gently in the ribs. "Edmund, one of these days you will be completely happy with nothing to grump about."

He took his wife's hand in his own, squeezed it, and whispered, "I think that day is today, Lucy."

Sighing contentedly and gently pulling her hand free, Lucy gently half-cupped one of Edmund's cheeks with the palm of her hand, drew herself closer to him, and kissed him.

That evening, at supper, the future high king and queen sat together, side by side, in the dinning hall. Jill Pole, Puddleglum, and Caspian sat at their table with them; Marjorie (of course) was sitting with Anne's old friends, but she noticed Jill, smiled in a friendly manner and waved to her (and to Lucy, as well-for good measure). Jill waved back and then turned her attention to something pessimistic Puddleglum was trying to tell her to 'put a brave face on' about.

Then Eustace entered the dinning hall and was looking around for a place to sit.

"Eustace, there's a place for you here," Jill told him, rising a little from her seat to get his attention. "Come and sit with us."

He looked over at Edmund almost as if he were already a king (at least of the table, if nothing else) and he needed his permission to join any table he was present at. And Edmund merely arched an eyebrow, as if from humble surprise despite the fact that he'd seen the recent change in Eustace same as everyone else, and waved him over.

Jill took a book off of the chair next to her and pulled it out for Eustace who now came and sat down gratefully.

The rich, golden, spreading light of the late sunset seeped into the dinning hall, reflecting off of the mirrored-walls. The effect of this was not painful; it was actually very beautiful, like extremely fine golden air that felt-on one's face-as lovely as it looked and was not quite sharp enough to be even remotely blinding or uncomfortable. It also seemed to do something nice to the reflections in the walls, making them softer, gentler, more appealing somehow, as if everybody in that hall was glowing from within, almost angelically.

Lucy noticed something different in the reflections of that golden light that no one else (possibly not even Edmund) did. It was strange, especially, because it seemed to include only the pupils at her own table; they all looked, in the looking-glasses draped everywhere, not like themselves but like persons-or creatures-who could have come straight out of her _Myths and Legends Of The Golden Age_ book. The table itself was changed in the mirror, too; it was akin, in reflection, to a longer, grander table that might have been used in High King Peter's court, draped with gold and purple cloth and plates of solid gold and silver set with semi-precious stones placed upon it.

Where the reflections of Eustace Scubb and Jill Pole ought to have been, there was, instead, a young man and young woman, seated in their places, who looked exactly as Lucy had always imagined Cor and Aravis of Archenland would. They were both richly clothed and had so many becoming, but very bright, slender chains of jewels and precious metals hanging from their necks. The result was very striking indeed.

Eustace lifted a glass as if in a mock-toast, making Jill laugh; and Cor, his face as serious as Eustace's was merry, lifted his glass in the mirror simultaneously. Jill laughed; and Aravis smiled at the same moment as the light cackle filled the room.

In the place where her own reflection should have stared, unblinking for the time being, an expression of quiet marveling on her face, back out at her, Lucy saw the most beautiful woman imaginable; long, black hair in elaborate styles of braiding with pearls and golden pins, light blue eyes, and pale skin. This, surely, was Queen Susan. The man next to her (where Edmund's reflection ought to have been), golden haired and deep-chested with the slightest trace of a beard and wearing a splendid old Narnian crown on his head, warm and blue-eyed, was Peter the High King; she would have known him anywhere, old or not, truly there or not.

The last rays of the sun shone on the glass. Feeling serene, Lucy leaned her head on Edmund's shoulder. What was there to be discontented with, after all? Aslan was on the move and all in the Narnian world was well again.

In the mirrored-wall, Susan rested her head on Peter's shoulder.

The sun set completely, the dinning hall relying on candles and oil lamps that had already been lit now. Lucy finally felt herself blink. Then, just like that, the mirrored-walls were back to normal. The high king's court was not there.

Or _was_ it? After all, Edmund was to be the new high king, and she, Lucy, his queen. And it was they themselves that looked back at her from the mirror, this new generation, fresh with promise and hope for the future.

Suddenly, she thought she knew the answer to something that had been weighing on her mind. It was true Aslan had said she could not know who was in his country or not till she got there and saw for herself, but Lucy wondered right then if what he'd really meant was that he couldn't tell her. But he had not said she couldn't guess, or have a feeling very akin to knowing. Susan, she thought, _was_ in Aslan's country now.

"She _did_ make it," Lucy whispered to herself, her voice so low that even Edmund, who's shoulder she still leaned on, could not hear her. "She lives on there, in that country, with Peter. I'm sure of it."

-The End-


End file.
